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THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



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THE STORY OF ROME. By Arthur Gilman 

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THE STORY OF CHALDEA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF NORWAY. By Prof. H. H. Boyesen 

THE STORY OF GERMANY. By S. Baring-Gould 

THE STORY OF SPAIN. By E. E, and Susan Hale 

THE STORY OF HUNGARY. By Prof. A. Vambery 

THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church 

THE STORY OF THE SARACENS. By Arthur Oilman 

THE STORY OF ASSYRIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF THE NORMANS. By Sarah O. Jewett 

THE STORY OF PERSIA. By S. G. W. Benjamin. 

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GATE OF THE COURT OF ORANGES, SEVILLE CATHEDRAL. 
Frontispiece. 



flhe Stoig dJ tip Aations 






THE 



STORY OF SPAIN 



BY 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

AND 

SUSAN HALE 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

%\z fmicktrbochcr |)ress 

1887 



COPYRIGHT 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

1886 



Press of 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York 



INTRODUCTION. 



SPAIN has held, for two thousand years, an inter- 
esting and important position among the states of 
Europe. She is of Europe and she is not. For the 
Pyrenees separate her so far from the continent, that 
her people have always had characteristics of their 
own, more deeply stamped upon them than those of 
any other European nation. Yet the Pyrenees are not 
impassable, and the Mediterranean is easily traversed. 
So that Spain has been no separated Japan, but she 
has had to give and take in the international cour- 
tesies, exchanges, and conflicts of the western 
world. There have been times when the monarchs 
of Spain gave the law to Europe. Even the Greek 
emperor once owed his crown to the succor of 
Catalonia. There have been times, again, when none 
have been so poor as to render to Spain any reverence. 
There are spots in Spain where a year may pass with- 
out a drop of rain. But within a few hundred miles 
the rainfall of the same year is all that is needed for 
the most successful agriculture, and these regions are 
rich and beautiful, while the others are arid deserts. 
The history of Spain shows contrasts which are as 
strong. It is hard to believe that we are reading of 
the same nation, when we follow the history of the 
great expeditions of discovery and war by which she 

iii 



iv THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

traversed and conquered two hemispheres ; and when, 
within a few generations after, we drag through the 
wretched annals of petty court intrigues, which are 
all that is left of the story of the descendants of 
Ferdinand and Isabella. 

To write every detail of such a history for English 
readers, would literally not be worth the ink and the 
paper w T hich it would cost. Of what is forgotten 
in it, much is well forgotten, and no writer need at- 
tempt to raise it from its grave. But we have 
thought that the reader of to-day ought to know 
what are the successive steps by which the Iberia, 
which was almost a fabled country to the Romans of 
the time of the Consuls, has become the Spain of 
to-day, with the proud record of Spain in literature, 
in adventure, in discovery, in statesmanship, and in 
war. The book which the reader holds undertakes 
to show these important steps. We pass, intention- 
ally and without a word, much of the detail of long- 
periods, that we may have the more space and 
chance to describe the essential movements of his- 
tory, on which the real fortunes of Spain have de- 
pended, and, in many instances, the fortunes of the 
world. What is left out is by no means without 
interest, and we do not pretend that it is without 
importance. We shall be glad, indeed, if in the 
story as we tell it, the reader shall be tempted to 
search for himself, in those narratives in different 
languages, by which he can fill out our intentional 
omissions. 

It might probably be said that no country has 
furnished more fascinating subjects for literature and 



INTRODUCTION. V 

art than Spain. The mere contrasts of which we 
have spoken are such as dramatists and poets delight 
in ; and one might almost say that the rare variety 
which fascinates the traveller in Spain, and the con- 
flicts and rivalries of the five or six nations which 
make up the Spanish people, have given a sort of 
stimulus, especially to romance, which we should 
hardly expect where nature and life are more com- 
monplace. From the first century, when Martial, 
Lucan, the Senecas, and Quintilian, all Spaniards by 
birth, were leaders in the literary circles of Rome, 
down to our days when Mr. Longfellow writes " The 
Spanish Student," and George Eliot " The Spanish 
Gipsy," the authors of every western nation have 
felt the Spanish fascination. The origin of modern 
romance might be fairly ascribed to Amadis of Gaul. 
It would be well indeed if some of the nineteenth- 
century romancers would imitate the directness of 
its narrative and the simplicity of its description. 
Though it is not to be accounted a Spanish romance 
originally, it owes all its early reputation to Spain ; 
the readers of Spain knowing how to give full 
sympathy to the work of Lobeira, who is indeed one 
of their own brothers, writing in the neighboring 
country of Portugal and in its kindred tongue. 

Within the last three months it has been said, on 
good authority, that among leaders of our own 
colored races at the South, there are traditions of 
the times when Islam held possession of Granada, 
and a vague feeling that, in the future, Africa and 
Africans shall regain their lost empire in Spain. 
This is certain, that Islam has never forgotten those 



VI THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

glorious centuries when Cordova and the sister cities 
were at the head of the civilization of the world. It 
is not, therefore, the literature of Europe or America 
only which looks fondly for its subjects to Spain, 
but we follow her legends and her truer histories as 
well in the Eastern writers, so long as the East had 
any literature. 

It has been, therefore, a part of our plan in follow- 
ing the Story of Spain, to refer, from chapter to 
chapter, to such illustrations from the writings of 
various authors of different countries, as might inter- 
est young readers and tempt them to follow, not 
only the history of Spain in its chronological order, 
but the series of writings which in romance, in 
poetry, and in other literature we owe to her sug- 
gestions. 




CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



PART I. 



I. 



Early Traditions ...... 3-18 

The necklace of the queen, 3 — Iberians on the peninsula, 
4 — Thirty-seven monkeys at Gibraltar, 4 — Celts from Asia 
migrate from the West, 5 — Celts, Iberians, and Celtiberi- 
ans, 5 — Their arms, their food, their dress, 6 — Names of the 
different tribes, -8 — Asturians, 8 — Cantabrians, 9 — Vascones 
or Basques, 9 — Basque language, or Esquera, 10 — Galici- 
ans, 11 — Lusitania, and the religion of the Druids, 12 — 
Characteristics of these Northern tribes, 12 — Early races of 
Southern Spain, 14 — Phoenicians, tempted by the wealth of 
the country, 16 — The alphabet of the Phoenicians, 17 — Dif- 
ference between tradition and written history, 17. 

II. 

Carthaginians ...... i9~ 2 9 

First acquaintance of Spain with the rest of the world, 19 — 
The ships of Tarshish, 19 — Foothold for the Carthaginians, 
20 — Carthage steadily gaining power, 20 — Hannibal's 
scheme of subduing the Spaniards, 21 — Hamilcar had built 
New Carthage, 21 — The boy Hannibal and his oath, 21 — 
War against Saguntum, 22 — The Saguntines resist bravely, 
24 — But, left to their fate, surrender, 25 — Result, described 
by Livy, 26 — Carthaginian tinge in the blood of Spain, 
27 — Its mark on literature, 28 — Poem of Zamora, 29. 

vii 



viii CONTENTS. 

III. 

I'AGE 

The Scipios 3°~4 2 

Rome attracted toward Spain, 30 — Her conquests make of 
it a Roman province, 30 — Scipio Africanus, the first com- 
manding figure, 32 — Publius Scipio appointed general, 33 — 
His wise policy with the Spaniards, 33 — He blockades New 
Carthage, 34 — Surprise of Mago, the Carthaginian general, 
34 — Success of the attack, 34 — Wealth of the city, brought 
to Scipio, 35 — He releases the hostages, 36 — Carthaginians 
expelled from Spain, 37 — Noble character of Publius 
Scipio, 37 — Cato the elder at Jaca, 38 — Assimilation of Ro- 
mans and Spaniards, 38 — Latin language prevails, 38 — 
Camilius Scipio takes control of the province, 40 — Fall of 

Numantia, 40. 

IV. 

Sertorius . . . . . . 44-53 

His picturesque story told by Plutarch, 44 — A soldier of 
ability, 44 — His voyage toward the Islands of the Blest, 45 — 
Lands in Mauritania, 46 — Received the white hind, 46 — He 
is regarded as divine in Lusitania, 47 — Helps the Spaniards 
to resist Rome, 47 — Founds a university at Osca, 47 — Devo- 
tion of his troops, 48 — His achievement against the Characi- 
tanians, 49 — Recognized master of a large part of Spain, 
52 — Not encouraged by Sylla ; an army despatched to crush 
him, 52 — Treaty with Mithridates, 52 — Conspiracy against 
Sertorius ; close of the episode, 53 — Corneille's tragedy, 53. 

V. 

Julius Cesar in Spain .... 54-69 

Death of Sertorius, 54 — Followed by Pompey, 54 — Caesar 
and Pompey at Munda, 55 — Position of the armies, 56 — 
The Waterloo of the conflict, 56 — Army of Pompey broken, 
57 — Victory of Caesar celebrated by a triumph, 57 — Augus- 
tus Caesar brings peace into Spain, 5S — Five cities of Spain 
established, 60 — Roman customs adopted, 61 — Historians 
and poets born in Spain, 62 — Martial's ode, 63 — Ode by 
Prudentius, 64 — His long poem, Peristephanior, 64 — Ro- 
man impress upon Spanish life, 67 — On language, 68. 



CONTENTS. IX 

PART II. 
VI. 

PAGE 

Ataulphus — Evaric ..... 73-91 

Northern invaders in Southern Europe, 73 — Change the 
destinies of Spain, 73 — Establishment of a Gothic dynasty, 
73 — Southern France, its military base, 74 — Advance of its 
armies to the Guadalquivir, 74 — Vigor infused into the 
Roman province, 75 — Southern France overrun, and Rome 
powerless, besieged by Alaric, 76 — Goths established in 
Toulouse, 77 — Becoming civilized, 77 — Ataulphus their 
king, 77 ; in love with Placidia, 78 — Receives her as his wife 
from Honorius, 7S — Court of Ataulphus at Barcelona, 79 — 
Trouble with his soldiers, 80 — assassinated by a dwarf, 80 — 
Wallia chosen king, 81 — Conditions of peace with Romans, 
82 — Hostilities against the barbarians, 84 — Theodoric suc- 
cessor to Wallia, 84 — Invasion of the Huns, 84 — Attila, the 
Scourge of God, 85 — Conquered, 85 — His death, 86 — Theo- 
doric the Visigoth, 86 — Evaric, king at Toulouse, 87 — The 
founder of the Gothic kingdom in Spain, 87 — Goths grown 
to be cultivated people, 88 — Gothic language, 8S — Evaric's 
death at Aries, 89 — Government of the Visigoths, 90 — In- 
auguration of their king, 91. 



VII. 

Arians ........ 92-105 

Origin of the Goths, 92 — Ulfilas converts them to the Chris- 
tian religion and reduces their language to writing, 93 — 
Their respect for the priests, 94 — Their form of religion 
called Arianism, 95 — Confronted with the dogmas of the 
Church, 96 — Conflict between Arians and Catholics, 9S — 
Not really a conflict as to the divine realities, 99 — Most 
valuable gift of Arianism to Spain, 100 — Muzarabic ritual, 
100 — Traces of the Gothic language, 101 — Sermon on the 
Mount in four languages, 102 — Resemblance of English and 
Spanish languages, 103 — Romance authors of Spain, 104— 
Influence of Spanish literature, 105. 



X CONTENTS. 

VIII. 

PAGE 

Leovigild — Recared .... 106-124 

Leovigild an Arian, 106 — His son, Erminigild, married to a 
princess of France, 107 — Her mother a Gothic princess, 108 
— Married in France, no — Ingunda a Catholic, in — Quar- 
rels with her step-mother, 112 — Erminigild becomes Catho- 
lic, [13 — Deeply offending his father, 114 — Rebels against 
Leovigild, 115 — Punished and exiled to Valencia, 116 — 
Thrown into prison, 117 — Obstinate in his faith, 118 — Exe- 
cuted by his father's order, 119 — Death of Leovigild, 12c — 
Recared converted from Arianism, 121 — His moderate 
measures, 122 — Catholic faith declared the religion of the 
state, 123 — Death of Recared, 124. 

IX. 
Toledo — Wamba ..... 125-138 

Toledo the capital of the Visigothic kings, 125 — Reigning 
there for several centuries, 126 — Catholic religion firmly 
established, 126 — Wamba unwillingly chosen king, 127 — 
An energetic sovereign, 128 — His troops suppress a rebellion 
in Gothic Gaul, 129 — Duke Paul its author, 130 — Rebels 
consigned to prison, 131 — Gothic Gaul pacified, 132 — 
Wamba persecutes the Jgws, 133 — Defends the court from 
Saracens, 134 — His trance, by which he was made a monk, 
135 — Ervigius reigns, 136 — Presence of the Goths in Toledo, 
137 — Spirit of Roderick, 138. 

X. 

Roderick, the Last of the Goths . . 139-15 1 

Roderick assumes the rule of Spain, 139 — Count Julian, the 
commander of the Spanish army in Africa, 140 — Has de- 
feated Musa, 141 — Betrays to him the strongholds of the 
Goths, 141 — Symbols of the pillars of Hercules, 142 — 
Legend of Roderick's visit to the cave of Hercules, 143 — 
Roderick learns of the invasion of Tarik, 145 — Rallies his 
forces, 146 — Battle of the Guadalete lost to the Goths, 146 
— Roderick drowned — Tarik advances to Toledo7 148 — Spain 
reduced to a Mohammedan province, 149 — "Roderick, the 
Last of the Goths," by Southey, 150. 



CONTENTS. XI 

PART III. 
XL 

PAGE 

The Caliphate of Cordova . . . 155-170 

Mohammed, the founder of Islamism, 155 — The triumphs 
of its armies, checked at Tours, 156 — Moslems content 
themselves with Spain, 157 — Abderahman, prince of the 
Omeyyades, 158 — Entertained by Bedouins, 160 — Offered 
sovereignty, 161 — Enters Spain, 162 — Resisted by Yussef, 
but successful, 163 — Spain governed by the Omeyyades, 
164 — Their munificence, 165 — The mosque of Gordova, 
166 — Cordova, centre of learning, 168 — Almanza, the re- 
gent, 169 — War with Christians, 169 — End of the Caliphate 
of the West, 170. 

XII. 

The Song of Roland .... 171-186 

Charlemagne at Saragossa, 171 — Attacked in the Pyre- 
nees by Basques, 172 — Battle of Roncesvalles, 173 — Diver- 
gence between history and legend, 173 — Roland and Olivier, 
174 — Journey of Ganelon, 175 — His treachery, 176 — The 
rear of the army entrusted to Roland, 177 — Approach of the 
Saracens, 178 — Fearful struggle, 179 — Archbishop Turpin, 
180 — Roland sounds his horn, 181 — Too late, 182 — Death 
of Olivier, 183 — The emperor hears the horn, 184 — Death 
of Roland, 185. 

XIII. 

Almoravides — Almohades . . . 187-202 

Christians regain some power, 187 — Almoravides called to 
protect the Moslems, 188 — Abdallah their leader, 189 — Yus- 
sef ben Taxfin, 190 — Takes possession of the kingdom, 191 
— And leads the armies to Spain, 192 — Overcomes the petty 
princes of Andalusia, 193 — Dies at Morocco, 194 — Short 
duration of the Almoravides, 195 — Mohammed the son of 
the lamp-lighter, 196 — Becomes Mahdi, 197 — Leader of the 
Almohades, or Unitarians, 198 — His successor, Abdelmu- 
raen, victorious in Africa, 199 — Becomes sovereign of all 
Mohammedan Spain, 200 — Crusade of Christians, 200 — Bat- 
tle of Navas de Tolosa, 201. 



Xll CONTENTS. 

XIV. 

PAGE 

Story of the Abencerrages . . . 203-212 

Abencerrages, a legendary family, 203 — Their rivals, the 
Zegris, 204 — Intense jealousies, 205 — Aixa, Tepi princess, 
bride of the king of Grenada, 206 — Wedding at the Moorish 
court, 207 — Splendors of the tribes, 208 — Competition in 
games, 209 — Abenhamet the flower of the Abencerrages, 
210 — Zorai'de, his beloved, married to the royal prince, 210 
— Interview discovered, 211 — Abencerrages ordered to the 
palace, 211 — Slaughtered in the Court of Lions, 212. 

XV. 

The Fall of Granada .... 213-228 

Mohammed ben Alhamar, 213 — Fortifies the kingdom of 
Grenada, 214 — Intercourse of Christians and Moors, 215 — 
Moors divided, and Christians united, 216 — Treachery in 
the Alhambra, 217 — End of the romantic period, 219 — Isa- 
bella determined to destroy the Moors, 220 — Boabdil the last 
prince of Grenada, 221 — Situation of the Alhambra, 222 — 
Zahara and Alhama, 223 — The mother of Boabdil, 224 — 
Grenada invested, capitulates, 225 — Boabdil surrenders the 
keys, 226 — " El ultimo sx>spiro del moro," 227 — Moors 
dreaming of Granada, 228. 

PART IV. 

XVI. 
Pelayo ....... 231-247 

Goths after their defeat, 231 — Retreat to the mountains, 
232 — Pelayo the head of a little kingdom, 233 — Alfonso el 
Casto, 234 — Legend of Bernardo del Carpio, 235 — His father 
imprisoned, 236 — Treachery of the king, 237 — Catholic 
faith of the early Goths, 238 — Ramiro visited by Santiago, 
239 — Santiago at Clavigo, 240 — Other legends of the saint, 
241 — Sancho the fat, 243 — Counts of Castile, 244 — Fernan 
Gonzalez, 245 — Miracle of the grotto, 246 — Successes of 
the Christians, 247. 



CONTENTS. xiii 

XVII. 

PAGE 

The Cm ....... 248-261 

Warfare between Mussulmans and Christians, 248 — The Cid, 
a hero coolly doubted by critics, 249 — Absolute veracity of 
the chronicle for us not important, 250 — Single story in his 
life, 251 — Boldness in presence of King Alfonso, 252 — Kind- 
ness of the monarch, 253 — Banished from Leon and Castile, 
254 — Attacks the Moors and becomes governor of Valencia, 
256 — Resists King Yussef, 257 — Twenty-nine Moorish kings 
slain, 258 — Courage of the Cid, 259 — His death, 260 — 
Translations of the chronicle and poem, 261. 

XVIII. 

Alfonso X. 262-280 

Seville, city of the perfect climate, 262 — Won for the Chris- 
tians by Ferdinand III., 264 — This king a saint, 265 — His 
son, Alfonso the Learned, 266 — His claim to be Emperor of 
Germany, 268 — Ferdinand de la Cerda, 268 — Quarrels about 
the succession, 269 — Sancho proclaimed king, 270 — Pedro 
the Cruel adorns the Alcazar, 271 — Loves Maria de Padilla, 
272 — 111 treats his bride, Blanche of Bourbon, 273 — Kills 
his brother Fadrique, 274 — Rouses the hostility of the French, 
276 — Flees before Henry at Trastamara, 277 — Gains the 
battle of Navarrete, 278 — Slain by his brother, 279 — Henry 
of Trastamara, 280. 

XIX. 
Arragon 281-297 

Occupies the northeast of Spain, 281 — Successes in war, 282 
— John of Arragon, 2S3 — Carlos, Prince of Viana, 2S4 — 
Joan Henriques, the disagreeable step-mother, 285 — Carlos 
in Naples, 286 — Urged to return, 2S7 — refused the title of 
heir-apparent, 28S — Arrested, 289 — Acknowledged by the 
insistance of the Catalans ; death of the Prince of Viana, 
289 — Blanche, his sister, persecuted by Joan, 291 — Shut up 
at Orthes, and poisoned, 292 — Misfortunes of King John, 
294 — Death of Joanna, 295 — Renewed courage of the old 
king, 296 — Enters Barcelona on a white charger, 297. 



xiv CONTENTS. 

XX. 

PAGE 

Ferdinand and Isabella . . . 298-320 

Maria of Castile and Arragon, 298 — Isabella's offers of mar- 
riage, 299 — Her attractions, 300 — Affianced to Ferdinand, 
30 1' — Meeting with her betrothed, 302 — The marriage, 304 — 
Proclaimed queen at Segovia, 305 — Isabella strengthens the 
kingdom, 306 — Head-quarters at Seville, 307 — Soul of the 
war against Grenada, 308 — Receives Columbus, 310 — As- 
sumes his undertaking, 311 — Return of Columbus, 312 — 
Children of Ferdinand and Isabella, 314 — The Princess 
Joanna, 315 — Illness of the queen, 316 — Her death, 317 — 
Buried in the cathedral at Grenada, 318 — Effigies on the 
tomb, 319 — The royal standard, 320. 

XXI. 

Charles I. of Spain — Charles V. of Ger- 
many ...... 321-340 

Power of Charles in Europe, 321 — Tried by prosperity, 
322 — His endless w.ars, 324 — Grandson of Isabella, 325 — 
Born at Ghent, 326 — Cardinal Ximenes regent, 327 — Jo- 
anna, mother of Charles, insane, 32S — Clemency of Charles, 
329 — Wars with Francisi., 330 — Bravery of Spanish troops, 
Moorish piracy, 331 — Siege of Pampeluna, 332 — Loyola, 
333 — Society of Jesus, 334 — Charles retires to Trieste, 335 
— His conquests at home, 336 — Extent of his kingdom, 337 
Reputation of Spaniards for cruelty, 339 — Courage, pa- 
tience, and foresight of Spain, 340. 

PART V. 

XXII. 

Three Philips 343~357 

Decline of the country, 343 — Possessions of Philip II., 
Poem of Numantia, 345 — Don Quixote, 346 — Marriages of 
Philip II., 347 — Portrait by Titian, 34S — " Bloody" Mary, 
348 — Double marriage at the court of France, 349 — Revolt 
of the Moriscos, 350 — Their contempt for Christian forms, 



CONTENTS. xv 



351 — Insurrection put down, 352 — Expelled by Philip III., 
353 — Treasures of the Moors, 353 — Another double mar- 
riage, 354 — Philip III.'s death, 355 — Philip IV., 356 — End 
of the real Spanish line of sovereigns, 357. 

XXIII. 
The Bourbons ...... 358-371 

Charles II. a weak descendant of the emperor, 358 — Con- 
temporary of Charles II. of England, 359 — Settlements in 
America, 360 — War of the Spanish Succession, 361 — Claim- 
ants to the throne, 362 — Philip V. proclaimed, 363 — Treaty 
of Utrecht, 365 — Blow to the Jesuits, 366 — United States of 
America, 368 — Charles III., 370 — Manuel Godoy, 371 

XXIV. 
Napoleon ....... 372-378 

Spain betrayed by Ferdinand, 372 — Battle of Trafalgar, 373 
— French and Spanish fleets, 374 — Death of Nelson, 375 — 
Villeneuve a prisoner, 376 — Joseph Bonaparte usurps the 
Spanish crown, 377 — Wellesley at Salamanca ; Wellington 
at Victoria, 378 — Fall of Napoleon, 378. 

PART VI. 

XXV. 

The Nineteenth Century . . . 381 — 396 

Shelley's ode to the Spaniards, 381 — Return of Ferdinand 
VII., 382 — Rebellion of the American colonies, 3S4 — Car- 
list plots, 385 — Isabella, heiress to the throne, 3S6 — Her 
cause that of liberalism, 387 — wretched failure of her life, 
388 — Protected by Espartero, 389 — Declared queen, 390 — 
Deposed, 391 — Amadeo made king ; abdicates, 392 — Al- 
fonso XII., 393 — His death, 394 — Birth of a prince, 395 — 
Dirge of Larra, 395. 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



GATE OF THE COURT OF ORANGES, SEVILLE 
DRAL . 

mountain gorge in the asturias 
monument of the druids 
roman amphitheatre at murviedro 
roman bridge at salamanca 
roman bridge at cuenca 
roman remains at merida . 
julius cesar .... 

Caesar's method of attack . 
roman aqueduct, segovia . 
roman temple at vienne 
roman gateway at treves . 

TOLEDO ...... 

THE WINDING PASS .... 

PUERTA DEL SOL, TOLEDO 
GIBRALTAR ..... 

MOORISH TOWER, TOLEDO 

MOORISH MILLS, CORDOVA 

MOSQUE AT CORDOVA 

THE GATE OF JUSTICE, ALHAMBRA . 

VIEW OF THE ALHAMBRA 

FOUNTAIN OF THE LIONS 

PUERTA DI SANTA MARIA, BURGOS . 

STREET IN VALENCIA 

xvii 



CATHE- 

Frontispicce 
7 
13 
2 3 
3i 
.39 
43 
55 
59 
65 
%3 
89 

97 
108 

JI 3 

J 43 

151 

i59 
167 

205 

228 
2 53 
2 55 



XVlil 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



TORRE DEL ORO, SEVILLE 

GALLERY OF PEDRO I., SEVILLE 

DIE GIRALDA .... 

DOOR IN THE ALCAZAR . 

AVIGORNAGNA, BILBAO . 

SARAGOSSA . 

CHATEAU DE BELLEGARDE 

PORTRAIT OF ISABELLA . 

CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES 

PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS . 

DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS 

COLUMBUS ON THE DECK OF HIS SHIP 

HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS, ALHAMBRA 

TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 

CHARLES THE FIFTH IN HIS THIRTY-FIRST YEAR 

BATTLE OF PAVIA . 

VALLADOLID .... 

BULL AND MATADOR, MADRID 

MALAGA .... 

CLOISTERS, TOLEDO 

SAN SEBASTIAN 

THE PASS OF PANCORBO . 

LEANING TOWER, SARAGOSSA . 

PALACIO REALE, MADRID 

MADRID, GENERAL VIEW . 



26l 

263 
267 

272 

275 
289 

' 2 93 
299 

3°3 
3°9 
3ii 
3i3 
3*7 
3 J 9 
3 2 3 
333 
343 
35i 
359 
3 6 3 
367 
369 
373 
383 
387 




CASTLES IN SPAIN. 

H. W. Longfellow. 

How much of my young heart, O Spain 

Went out to thee in days of yore ! 
What dreams romantic filled my brain 
And summoned back to life again 
The Paladins of Charlemagne, 
The Cid Campeador ? 

And shapes more shadowy than these, 
In the dim twilight half revealed, 
Phoenician galleys on the seas, 
The Roman camps like hives of bees, 
The Goth uplifting from his knees 
Pelayo on his shield. 



Yet something sombre and severe 

O'er the enchanted landscape reigned ; 

A terror in the atmosphere 

As if King Philip listened near, 

Or Torquemada the austere, 

His ghostly sway maintained. 

The softer Andalusian skies 

Dispelled the sadness and the gloom ; 
There Cadiz by the seaside lies, 
And Seville's orange orchards rise, 
Making the land a paradise 

Of beauty and of bloom. 



XX THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

There Cordova is hidden among 

The palm, the olive, and the vine ; 
Gem cf the South, by poets sung, 
And in whose mosque Almansor hung 
As lamps the bells that once had rung 
At Campostella's shrine. 

But over all the rest supreme, 

The star of stars, the cynosure, 

The artist's and the poet's theme, 

The young man's vision, the old man's dream, 

Granada by its winding stream, 
The city of the Moor. 

And there the Alhambra still recalls 
Aladdin's palace of delight : 

Allah il Allah through its halls 

Whispers the fountain as it falls. 

The Darro darts beneath its walls. 
The hills with snow are white. 



The Vega cleft by the Xenil, 

The fascination and allure 
Of the sweet landscape chains the will, 
The traveller lingers on the hill, 
His parted lips are breathing still 

The last sigh of the Moor. 

How like a ruin overgrown 

With flowers that hide the rents of time, 
Stands now the Past that I have known, 
Castles of Spain not built of stone, 
But of white summer clouds and blown 

Into this little mist of rhyme. 



| 

/ 



PART I. 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



CHAPTER I. 



EARLY TRADITIONS 



A CASTILIAN geographer, proud of his country, 
made a map of Europe representing a woman, with 
Spain for her head, the Pyrenees for her necklace, 
the Alps for her girdle. One arm was stretched out 
for Italy, while her feet ran off into Russia and 
Turkey.-" 

The necklace of the queen forms a line of separa- 
tion between her head and her bodv, sometimes a 
convenience, sometimes an obstacle to her welfare. 
The Pyrenees are mountains of secondary import- 
ance, compared with the Alps, but they make a strong 
barrier between the Spanish peninsula and the rest 
of Europe. On the northern or French side the 
descent from the summits is gradual, while on the 
Spanish side the valleys seem hollowed out like enor- 
mous chasms, with deep precipices and perpendicular 
cliffs thousands of feet high. The northern slope, 
exposed to the Atlantic, partakes of the European 
climate ; the southern, influenced by Mediterranean 
breezes, is more like Africa than Europe. 



4 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

On this peninsula, shut off from the rest of Europe 
by such a sharp mountain chain, long, long ago, 
before books were written, before people troubled 
themselves to make histories, there lived men called 
Iberians. ' No one can tell how they came to be liv- 
ing in this sunny southern corner of the continent. 
Probably they came across from Africa, and perhaps, 
when they did so, there was dry land for them to 
cross upon, where the narrow Straits of Gibraltar 
now lead the waters of the Atlantic Ocean to join 
those of. the Mediterranean Sea. Geologists think 
there may once have been an isthmus at the 
narrowest point, at Tarifa, where the distance from 
one continent to the other is now but twelve miles, 
over which it would be easy to cross. There is a 
tradition of a canal being cut, with a bridge built 
over it by the Phoenicians. The waters of the At- 
lantic rushed in and widened more and more the 
opening, making Europe and Africa separate conti- 
nents. 

Thirty-seven monkeys still hold their place in the 
woods and among the crags of the headlands of Gib- 
raltar. In the days of peace there is no duty more 
carefully impressed on the garrison than the watch 
over these survivors of another civilization, and in the 
daily report of the sentries they include the number 
of monkeys who have appeared. Many of the sol- 
diers, who have watched these gentry from another 
country and time, will tell the traveller that there is 
now a subterranean passage from Europe to Africa, 
and that the monkeys still know the way. 

This is certain, that in the early days of history 



EARLY TRADITIONS. 5 

Iberians were there, and are supposed to have come 
from the south. Other people came from the north, 
around the spurs of the Pyrenees, or over them 
through the easier passes. These were a part of 
the Celtic race, who at an unknown epoch had mi- 
grated toward the west from the plains of Central 
Asia. These Celts are supposed to have left Asia, 
and in immense armies to have poured over Europe. 
Some of them stopped in the. valley of the Danube, 
some of them pushed as far as Great Britain, others 
came into the Spanish peninsula, where they found 
the Iberians. 

It is hard to know exactly what these people were 
like, and to keep any distinct idea in our minds of 
the difference between Celts and Iberians, or to trace 
the mingling of the two races into another called 
Celtiberians, as the historians of this earlv time do. 
We must imagine'a warlike set of people, for they 
had to protect themselves from each other and from 
wild beasts. They thought every obstacle was to be 
overcome by fighting, so they threatened the sky 
with shooting arrows at it when it thundered, and 
drew their swords against the rising tide. They 
were generally friendly with each other, and often 
united to avenge an injustice done to one of their 
neighbors. 

The Celts who came over the Pyrenees into Spain 
were tall, with white skins and light hair. Some 
of them shaved their beards, leaving a long mustache 
growing down over the lip, and wore their hair in 
long braids. Their voices were rough and rude, but 
they had among them bards who sang to them songs 



6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

of praise or blame, accompanying themselves on a 
sort of lyre. Their arms were simple, consisting of 
two lances about three feet long. A short sword, a 
pole hooked at the end to seize the reins of horses, 
and a sling, were some of the weapons of foot- 
soldiers. The horsemen had swords, or sharp weap- 
ons which answered the purpose, and lances six feet 
long. They had great skill in managing horses, of 
which they had in early times discovered the value. 
Their food was frugal, a few dried acorns or chest- 
nuts, with mead or cider, satisfied the wants of 
several tribes ; and they were temperate and sober in 
their habits of eating and drinking, even in those 
barbarous times. They had no tables, the guests at 
a feast sat on benches set against the wall. At 
these feasts there was music and dancing, but the 
women were not allowed to be present. 

Their dress was simple. Soldiers wore garments 
of linen or leather belted around the waist, with caps 
on their heads ; in time of peace they had black 
woollen cloaks which fell down to their feet. 

These rough people were kind to their women, but 
allowed them a full amount of labor, for they left 
the cultivation of the fields entirely to them, as their 
reasonable share of the burden of living, while the 
men were away hunting, killing wild beasts, or keeping 
off enemies. The women guided the oxen, held the 
plough, and ground the corn, besides looking after 
all domestic concerns. < 

These early tribes had a coast-trade with the 
countries near them, consisting in the exchange of 
their produce with that of the neighboring islands of 








MOUNTAIN GORGE IN THE ASTURIAS. 
7 



8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

the Mediterranean, especially for wine. They knew 
the properties of iron, and the swords and spears 
which they made of steel formed from it, were in de- 
mand wherever they were known. 

Bull-fights appear to have been a favorite amuse- 
ment from the earliest time in the Spanish peninsula. 
It is evident that this custom existed before the 
Romans entered Spain, for it is represented upon 
ancient medals of a period earlier than their arrival. 

These early tribes had different names, and their 
characters were affected by the situations they lived 
in. At the present time the descendants of these 
early races living in the north of Spain have strongly 
marked traits of character which may be traced even 
to these remote ancestors. There are at present but 
few railroads or means of communication with the 
modern world, so that these people do not learn new 
fashions, and they keep up the old traditions of their 
fathers from year £o year, even from century to 
century, and talk an old language not modified by 
words from other languages, as has happened to the 
Spanish now spoken in other parts of Spain. 

The ASTURIANS lived in the mountain-gorges of the 
northwest, a region now romantic and picturesque, 
as it must have been in early days. It is full of 
steep ravines, through which foaming torrents come 
tumbling down on rocks from great heights. The 
hills are covered with great trees, oaks and beeches, 
for the most part. The streams come down leaping 
over precipices and running off into fertile valleys 
where fruit-trees grow, also chestnut and ash-trees. 

The people are a hardy, honest, good-hearted 



EARLY TRADITIONS. 9 

race, steady and industrious. They wear the same 
picturesque costume their great-grandfathers did, 
and speak the dialect which prevailed in Spain six 
hundred years ago. 

They believe in ghosts and fairies, and fill up their 
simple lives, in which not many things happen dur- 
ing a whole year of extreme interest, with fancies 
and fears springing from their superstitutions. 

The old women, as they sit spinning in the sun, 
tell long stories, over and over again, just the same 
as they heard them when they were little children, 
about the doings of the xanas, who are tiny fairies 
that come out of fountains and springs in the middle 
of the night, to dry their long damp hair in the 
moonbeams, and about the huestes, mischief-making 
imps who lurk about in the woods and marshes, only 
coming out when something sad or dreadful is going 
to happen, to foretell the misfortune. 

Next the Asturians, on the east, came the Can- 
tabrians, in a territory abounding in the precious 
metals, above all in iron ; and beside them dwelt the 
Vascones or Basques. These are thought to have 
been Iberians, strayed up from the south, and not 
Celts who came from the north into Spain. This 
belief is founded on the peculiarity of their lan- 
guage, which is entirely different from Spanish, or 
from any other known tongue. It is impossible to 
understand without learning it systematically, and it 
is hard to learn. Only those who were born and 
who have grown up among the Basques can really 
master it. 
■ There are many traditions about this strange old 



IO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

language, preserved unchanged since the beginning 
of knowledge. One legend calls it the language of 
the angels, with which Adam and Eve used to talk 
to each other. Another says that Tubal brought it 
into Spain, where he came, long before the confusion 
of tongues at the tower of Babel, so that it was not 
there mixed up with other languages. It is said that 
the devil tried to learn it, and studied it for seven 
years, but as he then only knew three words, he gave 
it up. The Andalusians say that in Basque "you 
spell Solomon and pronounce it Nebuchadnezzar." 

It is also prevalent in Navarre, and it is still spoken 
by 600,000 Spaniards and French. Its native name 
is Esquera. It cannot be classed with any Indo- 
European or Semitic tongue, and appears to be of 
earlier origin, presenting some grammatical analo- 
gies with Mongol, North American, and certain East 
African languages' The forms of ordinary grammar 
are therefore imperfectly applicable to it. The sub- 
stantive has no distinction of gender ; it is made to 
express, by means of an extensive system of affixes, 
all the ordinary relations of declension and conjuga- 
tions, and many which, in other languages, can only 
be expressed by periphrases. The termination of a 
word may thus express together, mood, tense, per- 
son, number, and case of' the object, and also the 
sex, rank, and number of the individuals addressed, 
besides other relations. Foreign words are easily 
assimilated, but with such modifications as suit the 
Basque ear, and these vary according to local dialect. 
Diminutives, and other general affixes, increase the 
delicacy of expression, and a wide range of speech is 



EARL Y TRADITIONS. I I 

early acquired by the natives. Compound words are 
readily formed by mere juxtaposition, or by elision 
of syllables, not peculiar modifications, for euphony. 
The article has two forms — a for the singular, ala 
for the plural — affixed to the substantive. There 
appears to be no genuine Basque word beginning 
with r. In the usual structure of the sentences the 
noun, with the article affixed, occupies the first place ; 
it is followed by the adjective, then the adverb, next 
the verb, and lastly the object, with its prepositional 
affix. No written Basque is known of earlier date 
than the fifteenth century, and little genuine litera- 
ture exists ; the orthography is therefore arbitrary, 
and the earliest writings are difficult to interpret. 

The Basques are very proud of their ancient lan- 
guage and their long descent. 

The GALICIANS possessed the sea-coast in the 
northwest corner of the peninsula. They were like 
their neighbors, bold and warlike, and were prosper- 
ous on account of the abundance of fish on their 
coasts, which attracted merchants from other nations. 

The LusiTANlANS occupied what is now Portugal, 
but their territory extended farther into Spain than 
that country does now. They had the reputation of 
being the most learned tribe on the peninsula. -The 
Romans reported in their time that for six thousand 
years this race had possessed poems, and laws, and 
grammatical rules for their language, but there is 
nothing now left to show that they differed from 
the other races in the neighborhood. - 

In Cantabria and Lusitania the religion of the 
Druids prevailed, for in these regions are found the 



12 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

monuments of their strange ceremonies ; there are 
great blocks of stone standing alone, or set in circles, 
sometimes marked with coarse carvings or figures in 
relief. Such traces of the past are more frequent in 
other countries where the Celts lived, but there are 
enough in Spain to prove that this religion was prac- 
tised there. It was a worship of the forces of nature, 
for though the Druids believed in one Supreme God, 
they adored also the stars, the ocean, thunder, and 
wind. 

Oak-forests were their sanctuaries. D?"uid means 
" men of oak," and in these forests they celebrated 
their rites. Every year, on the sixth day of the moon 
of Marel, the priests, dressed in a long white tunic, 
with their feet bare, and their heads crowned with 
ivy, marched with great ceremony into the forest, 
where they cut off mistletoe from the trees with a 
golden sickle. 

Mistletoe is an evergreen bush with white berries 
which attaches itself to the trunks and branches of 
trees, and grows by thrusting its roots into them. The 
Druids considered it sacred when they found it grow- 
ing upon the oak. 

This part of their worship seems to us simple and 
graceful, but they believed in human sacrifice, and 
the stones which remain standing are known to be 
altars on which victims were killed to gratify their 
gods. 

It is well to know something about these early 
Northern tribes, because as we go on with the story 
we shall see their descendants, the men who led the 
same sort of lives they did, and grew up under simi- 



EARLY TRADITIONS. 



13 



lar influences, under a cool mountain climate, shut 
off from the rest of the world, exhibiting the same 
brave characteristics, with temperate habits, great 




MONUMENT OF THE DRUIDS. 



love of country, and a superstitious faith in whatever 
form of religion they were led to accept by their 
priests. 

Of the early races in the southern part of Spain it 



14 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

is not easy to judge, for the population there has 
changed from century to century, by the invasions 
of other races. If the Iberians came along the shore 
of Africa to enter Spain by Gibraltar they were 
probably dark men, of Eastern characteristics, very 
different from the blond, hardy Celts. As they were 
spread over the central part of the peninsula, and 
mingled with the Celts who came down from the 
north, the two races came to live together, and to 
share each others habits and manners, so that in time 
they were a combination of both, called Celtiberians 
by the Romans who found them there. 

The northeastern part of Spain is occupied by the 
Catalonians, a race with its own characteristics, as 
strongly marked as the races of Basques or Asturi- 
ans. This part of the country seems to have been 
settled by the Phoenicians, a roving people who 
were dwelling on the sea-coast of Syria at the earli- 
est dawn of history. Their reputation was that, having 
settled themselves in any country, they immediately 
undertook distant voyages, and carrying cargoes of 
goods, visited other places. They are the people 
called Canaanites in the Bible. They were pirates 
as well as merchants, for they did not hesitate to 
kidnap the crews of the ships they met, and to carry 
them off as their slaves. But although they made 
the nations suffer whom they visited, they also left 
behind them an improved civilization, and the trade 
they established in the ports they touched at was a 
benefit to these as well as to themselves. 

They sailed through the Red Sea and the Persian 
Gulf, and thus communicated with India and the 



EARLY TRADITIONS. I 5 

eastern coast of Africa. They searched every inlet 
of the Mediterranean Sea, and, passing through the 
Straits of Gibraltar, visited the British Isles, where 
they found tin. 

All the sea-coast towns of Spain benefited by their 
commerce, and sometimes they left colonies behind 
them. The Catalonians are supposed to have sprung 
from some of these, but by the time when written 
history begins there is a mixture of other races in 
their blood. They have received additions from 
other nations, and their province is near enough to 
Gaul to have been subject to invasions from there, 
as well as to Gallic influence. 

The Phoenicians, who were always on the look-out 
for trade, found Spain to be a country which prom- 
ised great advantage to their commerce. Cadiz 
was their most powerful settlement. It is just out- 
side the Straits of Gibraltar, and when the first enter- 
prising Phoenician sailors reached it, they thought 
they had come to the very end of the world. They 
supplied the natives with things they had brought 
from the far East, and took in exchange gold, silver, 
and iron. * A tradition says that they took away more 
silver than their ships could well carry, and that their 
anchors and all their common implements were made 
of it/ It is said that the Celts and Iberians did not 
know how to use their gold and silver until the new- 
comers taught them, but they had made themselves 
weapons of steel out of iron. 

The Phoenicians spread all over the country, look- 
ing for mines, which they prevailed upon the natives 
to open and work for their benefit. Almost every- 



1 6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

where in Spain coins and medals bearing the mark 
of Phoenician workmanship have been found, and 
ruins of their buildings. 

We can imagine that after people had learned 
how to make boats and to go sailing about over the 
sea on voyages of discovery, the news spread from 
country to country about what was to be found in 
each. The rumor that Spain was full of mines of 
gold and silver came back to the nations farther east, 
and excited the desire of adventurers there, just as 
when later, in Spain itself, Columbus dreamed of 
more gold and silver far in the West, and sailed in 
search of it. Such a rich field of wealth was not left 
to the hands of the Phoenicians ; other explorers 
came and took what they wanted. Their successful 
example led the Greeks to try their luck. • About 
eight or nine hundred years before Christ, the Rho- 
dians arrived on the coast of Catalonia, and founded 
a town which they called Rhodia ; and other expedi- 
tions set out from different parts in Greece, and gave 
names to places which may still sometimes be recog- 
nised. It does not appear that these early colonists 
cared to take any control of the country ; probably 
they never thought of such a thing, but each for 
himself sought to get what he could and what he 
cared for from the inhabitants, who, for their part, 
welcomed the new-comers, who brought objects of 
luxury, new ideas and customs, into their simple lives. 
These Greeks, Phoenicians, and others mingled with 
the population, founded their own towns, and estab- 
lished their own industries, all for the mutual good of 
themselves and the original inhabitants. 



EARLY TRADITIONS. I 7 

One thing the Phoenicians gave to the colonies 
they founded, — an alphabet, for it was to this people 
that Western Europe — including all the races from 
which English-speaking people spring — owes the 
alphabet which we now employ. So soon as an 
alphabet and written language comes into use, 
history changes its form. Till then every thing is 
handed down by tradition — that is, by what is told 
from the old to the young for generation after gen- 
eration. Now, in tradition, there is but a very indis- 
tinct notion of time. What happened to " your 
grandfather " is soon mixed with what happened to 
"your grandfather's grandfather." In the case of 
Spain, up to the time when the Phoenicians had set- 
tled their colonies in Spain, every thing we know 
about the country is vague and doubtful, but after 
that, the story of the land is found in the narratives 
that were written about what was going on in the 
world, and thus preserved. 

The period we have been describing in this chap- 
ter lasts from the very earliest traditions of the 
country, down' to a time about four hundred years 
before Christ. Some of the Iberians may have 
reached the north of Spain where they settled them- 
selves, and the old Basque language may be the 
nearest dialect now spoken to the ancient tongue of 
the Iberians. Celts came from the countries north 
of Spain and settled in the peninsula, keeping them- 
selves apart in some cases, sometimes w r andering tow- 
ards the south and mixing with the Iberians. The 
Phoenicians came later from the eastern shores of the 
Mediterranean, formed colonies, roused traffic, and 



1 8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

introduced many features of an advanced civilization, 
while they were developing the resources of the 
country. 

The fame of its mines spread abroad, and excited 
the desire of other nations, who came not only to 
share its wealth, but to conquer. 





CHAPTER II. 



CARTHAGINIANS. 



But the first acquaintance which Spain made 
with the rest of the world, after the westward-flow- 
ing wave of Celts poured in on her, was made in 
her trade with Phoenicia and Carthage. 

And to-day, as we of other lands read of Spain, 
our first glimpse of her is in the Bible language, 
where we read of the ships of Tarshish. Tarshish 
was but a vague name to the Hebrew writers, as 
India has been to many an English writer. But as 
an " Indiaman " stands in English literature for a 
ship of great burden which comes from a rich land 
far away, — and this because India is India, — so the 
ships of Tarshish of the Bible writers, were the 
Phoenician ships which dealt with Tartessus. ' Tar- 
tessus was the district west of our Gibraltar, in the 
south of Spain. The traveller of to-day finds heavy 
English steamers there, taking in copper ore at the 
mouth of the River Tinto, and, if he be an American 
traveller, he remembers that from that same river, in 
other " ships of Tarshish," Columbus sailed for the 
discovery of lands rich with gold. 

The Phoenician trade with Spain naturally gave 
the Carthaginians a foothold there, for Carthage was 

19 



20 . THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

simply a Phoenician colony, which in time far out- 
grew the strength and empire of the northern cities 
of Phoenicia. Isaiah, in predicting the fall of Tyre, 
comes back with a steady refrain to the people of 
Tarshish as finding no city, no port, no welcome 
when they came back to Syria. In his day — that is 
to say, in the eighth century B.C. — the trade with Tar- 
tessus was so important for Tyre, that he brings it 
in in the very front of his description. Meanwhile 
Carthage was steadily gaining in power, and Cartha- 
ginian merchants and miners were extending the foot- 
hold which Syrian tradesmen had begun. 

In what we call the first Punic war between Rome 
and Carthage, and in the events which led to it, 
Carthage had lost her hold on the great islands of 
Sardinia and Sicily. We owe to Niebuhr the obser- 
vation, that her statesmen or her statesman resolved 
to repair that loss by creating a province in Spain. 

" When, after the, American war, it was thought 
in England that the ignominious peace of Paris had 
put an end to the greatness of England, Pitt under- 
took, with double courage, the restoration of his 
country, and displayed his extraordinary powers. It 
was in the same spirit that Hamilcar acted : he 
turned his eyes to Spain ; he formed the plan of 
making Spain a province which should compensate 
for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia. 

" The weakness of Carthage consisted in her 
having no armies ; and it was a grand conception of 
Hamilcar's to transform Spain into a Carthaginian 
country, from which national armies could be ob- 
tained. His object, therefore, was, on the one hand, 



CA R THA GIN I A N S. 2 I 

to subdue the Spaniards, and on the other, to win 
their sympathy, and to change them into a Punic 
nation, under the dominion of Carthage. 

" The whole of the southern coast of Spain had 
resources of no ordinary kind ; it furnished all the 
productions of Sicily and Sardinia, and in addition 
to these it had very rich silver mines, the working of 
which has been revived in our own days. Hamilcar 
was the first who introduced there a regular and sys- 
tematic mode of mining, and this led him or his son-in- 
law, to build the town of New Carthage. While the 
Carthaginians thus gained the sympathy of the 
nation, they acquired a population of millions, which 
relieved them from the necessity of hiring faithless 
mercenaries, as they had been obliged to do in the 
first Punic war. They were enabled to raise armies 
in Spain just as if it had been in their own country." 

To that province, the boy Hannibal was taken by 
his father, immediately after the oath by which he 
swore that he would always be the enemy of the 
Romans. This pretty story, which is cited so often, 
is perfectly authenticated. When Hannibal was an 
exile at the close of his life he told it to King Anti- 
ochus. 

He said : 

" When I was a little boy not more than nine 
years old, my father offered sacrifices to Jupiter the 
Best and Greatest, on his departure from Carthage as 
general in Spain. While he was conducting the sac- 
rifice, he asked me if I would like to go to the camp 
with him. I said I would gladly, and began to beg 
him not to hesitate to take me. He replied : ' I will 



22 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

do it if you will make the promise I demand.' He 
took me at once to the altar, at which he had offered 
his sacrifice. He bade me take hold of it, having 
sent the others away, and bade me swear that I 
would never be in friendship with the Romans." 

The Carthaginian faction, which opposed the 
family of Hamilcar, his father, opposed him also. 
" I think that this youth should be kept at home," 
said Hanno, stoutly, " and taught under the restraint 
of laws and magistrates, to live on an equal footing 
with the rest of the citizens, lest at some time or 
other this small fire should kindle a vast conflagra- 
tion." But they could not keep him at home. He 
was sent -into Spain, and was very soon a favorite 
with the army, as well he might be. No toil dis- 
mayed him. He slept and he waked when the du- 
ties of the camp required, and was satisfied with a 
bed on the ground. He never spared himself in any 
danger, and cavalry t and infantry knew him as their 
leader before he' was of the age of manhood. 

So soon as he had an army under, him he moved 
really against Rome. " From the day on which he 
was declared general, as if Italy had been decreed to 
him as a province, and war with Rome committed 
to him," he resolved to make war against Saguntum. 

Whoever goes to find Saguntum now, finds only 
a town called Mur Viedro. " Mur Viedro " is what 
is left of the Latin words " Muri Veteres " — " Old 
Walls," — and these old walls are all that is left of 
Saguntum. But Saguntum, in the days of Hanni- 
bal, was a strong and rich Greek city. It had been 
settled from Zacynthus, which is now Zante, and 



^ilBii'ilMiililjiilliiHiilii 




24 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

sends you the currants for your mince pies, and was 
well known to Ulysses. From Zacynthus, they say, 
came its name. Hannibal meant to march against 
Rome, and finding in his way this strong city — 
which had quite forgotten Greece, I think, and hoped 
for Roman support, because in a sense it was an ally 
of Rome, — he attacked Saguntum. 

He made the regular approaches of those times. 
Protecting his troops by " vinese," for which the 
ground was not unfavorable, he advanced a battering- 
ram 'towards the wall. His army is said to have 
numbered one hundred and fifty thousand men. 
The Saguntines were heartily united. They made 
frequent sallies with courage, and severe engage- 
ments took place, in one of which, to the dismay of 
his men, Hannibal himself was wounded in the thigh. 
Till he recovered, the siege was little more than a 
blockade. But, so soon as he recovered, he pressed 
it eagerly.- Three successive towers and the walls 
between were overthrown by the besiegers. But, in a 
pitched battle over the breach, the brave Saguntines 
drove the Carthaginians back to their camp. And, 
at this juncture, it was announced that ambassadors 
had arrived at the sea-shore from Rome, whence the 
citizens were hoping for assistance. 

That assistance, alas for them, was only diplo- 
matic ! Rome was not yet aroused to a sense of 
the importance to her of this Spanish quarrel. The 
ambassadors had no army behind them. Hannibal 
sent word ty them that he had no time to listen to 
embassies-,-^ and that they could not come to him 
through so many armed bodies of savage tribes. 



CA R THA GINIA NS. 2 5 

They turned aside, therefore, to Carthage, and the 
Saguntines were left to their fate. 

This fate came on with terrible certainty. In the 
short respite the Saguntines had repaired their wall. 
But Hannibal inflamed his army by the promise of 
the spoil of the city, and led to a new attack. He 
brought up a tower higher than any of the walls, and, 
by the catapults and balistae upon it, cleared the walls 
from their defenders. With five hundred Africans 
at work with pickaxes, he undermined the wall itself 
on that side, so that it fell with a terrible crash, and 
the city was open again by a breach which gave 
space for fighting, as in the field. 

Then for the first time was some offer of surrender 
made by the Saguntines. Alcon, one of their num- 
ber, went to Hannibal's camp to offer him terms. 
But Hannibal's answer was so severe that Alcon did 
not venture to carry it back. On Hannibal's part, 
Alorcus carried the same terms to the Saguntine 
senate. 

Here is the result as it is described by Livy, the 
Roman historian : 

" He takes away from you your city," said Alorcus, 
" which, already for the greater part in ruins, he has 
almost wholly in his possession ; he leaves you your 
territory, intending to mark out a place in which 
you may build a new town ; he commands that all 
the gold and silver, both public and private, shall be 
brought to him ; he preserves inviolate your persons 
and those of your wives and children, provided you 
are willing to depart from Saguntum, unarmed, 
each with two garments. These terms a vie- 



26 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

torious enemy dictates. These, though harsh and 
grievous, your condition commends to you. In- 
deed, I do not despair, when the power of every 
thing is given to him, that he will remit something 
from these terms. But even these, I think, you 
ought rather to endure, than suffer, by the rights of 
war, yourselves to be slaughtered, your wives and 
children to be ravished and dragged into captivity 
before your faces." 

When an assembly of the people, by the gradual 
crowding round of the multitude, had mingled with 
the senate, to hear these proposals, the chief men 
suddenly withdrawing before an answer was returned, 
and throwing all the gold and silver collected, both 
from public and private stores, into a fire hastily 
kindled for that purpose, the greater part flung 
themselves into it. When the dismay and agitation 
produced by this deed had pervaded the whole city, 
another noise was heard in addition from the citadel. 
A tower, long battered, had fallen down ; and when 
a Carthaginian cohort, rushing through the breach, 
had made a signal to the general that the city was 
destitute of the usual outposts and guards, Hanni- 
bal, thinking that there ought to be no delay at 
such an opportunity, having attacked the city with 
his whole forces, took it in a moment, command 
being given that all the adults should be put to 
death ; which command, though cruel, was proved 
in the issue to have been almost necessary. For 
to whom of those men could mercy have been 
shown, who, either shut up with their wives and 
children, burned their houses over their own heads, 



CA R Til A GINIA NS. 2 7 

or abroad in arms made no end in fighting except 
in death ? 

" The town was taken with immense spoil. Though 
the greater part of the goods had been purposely 
damaged by their owners, and resentment had made 
scarce any distinction of age in the massacre, and the 
captives were the booty of the soldiers ; still it 
appears that some money was raised from the price 
of the effects that were sold, and that much costly 
furniture and garments were sent to Carthage. "<» 

And so Hannibal gave to Rome that affront, which 
was never atoned for, till he died, a fugitive, — by 
suicide. For nearly forty years he was the terror of 
Rome. 

Thus is it that, as we read the story of Spain, it 
has mixed in with the stream this little eddy of 
Phoenician or Carthaginian life. What eddy, indeed, 
does not flow in that stream somewhere? When one 
reads in his Bible of Hiram, King of Tyre, or of that 
handsome Isabella — who has given to all Jezebels of 
modern days her name of Jezebel, — when one reads 
in his Virgil of her cousin — or was it her grand- 
niece — the Elissa or Dido, " who wept in silence " 
because yEneas would not come, — one must remem- 
ber that people with their names, and of their blood, 
came and lived, and married, and bore children, 
and died, in our beautiful Spain. There is their 
blood to-day, — all mixed in with the blood of 
Basques, and Celtiberians, and Galicians, and Goths, 
and Romans, and Moors. A bit of their language is 
in " Barcelona/' — which word preserves the memory 
of the Barca family of Carthage, to which Hamilcar 



28 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

and Hannibal belonged. Barca is of same root as 
the name of Barak — who sent Balaam on his errand, 
— and it means " lightning." In " Carthagena," — 
both in the Old World and the New, — we have the 
memorial of " Carthage." And " Carthage " means 
"the city." Where you read, in the Book of Job, 
" I went out to the gate through the city," — you 
read what Job wrote when he said " through Kcreth." 
And in the Book of Joshua you find that Kartah, in 
Zebulun, was one of the cities of the Levites. Kartah 
was the ancient godmother of Carthage, of Crita, 
and of the Carthagenas. Kartah-tuba, " an import- 
ant city " — became the Corduba of the Romans, — 
and is the Cordova of to-day. From Cordovan 
leather, the best in the world, the workmen in leather 
were called cordwainers till within the memory of 
x this generation.* 

Hannibal's sway in Spain has made less mark 
than one might have supposed in Spanish literature. 
But occasionally it has furnished a subject for a 
picture or a poem. There is an old Spanish poem, 
by Lorenzo de Zamora, — called " La Saguntina," — 
which, with such fact as the author has, and a suffi- 
cient addition of imagination, describes the siege of 
Saguntum. There is large intermixture of tourna- 
ments of the chivalric period, and of other customs 
which belong to the period of the Romancers. When 
Zamora wrote there was an enthusiasm in Spain for 
narrative poems. He died in 1614. 

Here are two stanzas from the long poem, which 
will illustrate its simplicity : 

* Not because they waxed their thread. 



CAR THA GIN IAN S. 



2 9 



" The city chooses of iis best 

Thrice five with every year ; 
No one is chief above the rest 

But each with each is peer. 
And five shall watch in strength and truth, 

To keep the bad in awe ; 
And five shall teach the maids and youth, 

And five shall make the law. 



" Lord Hannibal upon the town 

His hirelings brings from far ; 
The men of Ocana come down, 

To seive him in the war. 
With all that Andalusia yields 

Her trooping soldiers come ; 
From rich Granada's fertile fields, 

From Cadiz washed with foam ; 
With guards and spears, find helms and shields 

They march to fight with Rome." 




CHAPTER III. 



THE SCIPIOS. 



Two things followed naturally from the move- 
ment of Hannibal, by way of Spain, against Rome. 
The first was that the attention of the Roman sen- 
ate and people was attracted to a region which had, 
till now, only interested miners and merchants. The 
indifference with which the Roman senate heard the 
first appeal made to them by the people of Sagun- 
tum, shows that Spain was then quite outside of 
their world. It was not until the annihilation of 
Saguntum proved to be the beginning of Hannibal's 
march of triumph, that the government of Rome 
began to see the importance of Spain, and to send 
armies to a region which had before attracted men 
of commerce only. 

From the armed occupation of garrisons, from the 
necessary invasion of provinces which must be either 
friends or enemies, sprang the permanent Roman oc- 
cupation of Spain. Steadily, and now without any 
long interruption for centuries, the conquests go' for- 
ward which make of Spain a Roman province. To 
this occupation Spain owes the basis of her language 
of to-day, which, as we shall see, is a language of Ro- 
man roots, handled in a Gothic or Northern gram- 

30 



32 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

mar. And it is to this Roman occupation that the 
antiquarian owes it, that he may now see in Spain 
traces of Roman customs, for which, sometimes, he 
searches unsuccessfully in Italy itself. 

The first commanding figure who comes into the 
story of Spain in the Roman occupation is that of 
Scipio, the first Scipio who received the title, then 
honorable, of " the African," — Scipio Africanus. 
Young men came to the front in trying times like 
those of Hannibal and his enemies. The Romans 
believed that the young Scipio saved his father's life 
at the battle of Ticinus, where Hannibal defeated 
him with terrible slaughter. From that time he was 
engaged against Hannibal, in one field or another, 
.until he finally defeated him at Zama, sixteen years 
after. Of this interval much of the time was spent 
in Spain. 

Scipio's father had been killed in battle there, and 
his uncle also. The family was mourning the loss of 
these men and of ofhers killed in the war, when an 
assembly of the Roman people was called to name 
a general for the command in Spain. It was not the 
simplest thing in the world, seeing that all men knew 
that in a period of thirty days two generals had been 
killed there, and the Roman arms thoroughly de- 
feated. No one at first volunteered for the com- 
mand, though it was the custom of enterprising- 
generals to offer themselves to the people. Then 
Publius Scipio appeared. He was only twenty-four 
years old. He took his stand in the Roman forum, 
where every one could see him. He asked that he 
might be sent to the country where his father had 



THE SCIPIOS. 3$ 

fallen, to take the command of the army which had 
been beaten. He was appointed by acclamation. 
Every " century " voted for him, and every man in 
every century. He took the command, where, as 
Livy says, he must carry on his work " between the 
tombs of his father and his uncle." 

He arrived in Spain in the summer of the year 2 10 
B.C. The whole country south of the Ebro was in 
possession of the Carthaginians. But the three Car- 
thaginian generals were engaged on roving expedi- 
tions up and down in the interior, and were not on 
any good terms with each other. 

Scipio used his time to great advantage, as it after- 
ward proved, in conciliating the important Spaniards. 
They were already beginning to find that the Car- 
thaginians were hard masters, and the courtesy and 
the justice of Scipio did much to detach them from 
their alliances. Scipio rejected all the advice which 
he received to attack either of the Carthaginian gen- 
erals, and instead of this, marched directly upon New 
Carthage, which was the capital and the head-quarters 
of the whole Carthaginian movement. He encour- 
aged the old soldiers, who had met so many reverses 
in Spain, by telling them of the Roman successes 
elsewhere, and by that convenient rule of life which 
all optimists are apt to bring forward, which he 
stated thus : " It has happened to us by a kind of 
fatality, that in all important wars we have been vic- 
torious after having been defeated." He closed his 
speech by saying : " Come, then, veterans, lead youi 
new commander and your new army across ths 
Iberus; lead us into a country with many a deed oi 



34 THE STORY OF SPAIN: 

valor." He sent his fleet around to blockade New 
Carthage, and moved on the city himself with such 
precision that the fleet arrived for a blockade and the 
army for a siege on the same day. 

Mago, the Carthaginian general, who was in com- 
mand at New Carthage, was taken by surprise. He 
had but a small garrison, which proved to be insuffi- 
cient. Scipio did not wait for a formal siege. He 
attacked the city at once, attempting to scale the 
walls. While the enemy were engaged on this side, 
he pushed an attack in person on the north, and led 
a body of men across the lake which Mago had relied 
upon for protection. 

" It w T as about mid-day, and, besides that the water 
was being drawn off naturally, in consequence of the 
tide receding, a brisk north wind rising impelled the 
water in the lake, which was already in motion, in 
the same direction as the tide, and rendered it so 
shallow that in some parts the water reached only 
to the navel, while in others it scarcely rose above 
the knees. Scipio, referring this discovery, which 
he made by his own diligence and penetration, to 
the gods and to miracle, which had turned the 
course of the sea, withdrawn it from the lake, and 
opened ways never before trodden by human feet to 
afford a passage to the Romans, ordered them to 
follow Neptune as their guide, and, passing through 
the middle of the lake, make good their way to the 
walls." The success of this attack quickened the 
assault on the walls, and the defenders, finding their 
lines broken in two quarters, retired into the citadel. 
The Roman army entered the city and put to the 



THE SCIPIOS. 35 

sword every man they found, till, as Livy says, " on 
a signal given they put a stop to the carnage and 
turned their attention to plunder." 

The recapitulation of the wealth of New Carthage 
gives some idea of the civilization to which Spain 
had then attained. Two hundred and seventy-six 
golden bowls, almost all of which weighed a pound, 
were brought to Scipio ; an immense number of sil- 
ver vessels, and eighteen thousand pounds' weight of 
coined and wrought silver. One hundred and thir- 
teen merchant ships were captured in the harbor and 
five ships of war. But the most valuable part of the 
capture, for the purposes of the victor, was to be 
found in his prisoners. For he took all the hostages 
whom the Spanish tribes had given in pledge of 
their fidelity to Carthage ; he took two thousand 
artisans whom he made the slaves of the Roman 
people, but he held out to them a hope of emancipa- 
tion if they would serve in the war loyally and 
strenuously. He filled up the rowers of his fleet 
with young men and able-bodied slaves. The proper 
citizens of New Carthage had their property restored 
to them and were recognized as freemen. It was by 
such a policy that he conciliated the leaders of 
Spain, and steadily detached them from the Cartha- 
ginian alliance. The total number of prisoners 
which he took by this bold push on the city was 
ten thousand. 

The custom of giving hostages who were the rela- 
tives or dear friends of the persons bound by a 
treaty, was one of the wretched peculiarities of 
ancient warfare, from which states and statesmen 



36 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

are now happily set free. Here in New Carthage, 
Scipio found a large number of such people, all 
of high rank of course, who were held in captivity, 
however honorable that captivity might be, and 
whose lives would have certainly been forfeited 
had the Spanish allies of the Carthaginians proved 
false to their engagements. Some writers state the 
number of these hostages who fell into Scipio's 
hands as high as seven hundred and twenty-five. 
So soon as he released them, the Carthaginians lost 
their native allies, if they had been holding them by 
fear. Scipio meanwhile was doing his best to con- 
ciliate them by the courtesy and moderation of his 
bearing ; and, in truth, he gained such an ascendancy 
over the Spaniards by his unselfish manliness, his 
courage and justice, that, on one occasion, a large 
body of them offered him the crown and would 
gladly have made him king. But with true repub- 
lican dignity, Scipio refused the honor. He said to 
a multitude who had«saluted him as king : " I think 
that the most honorable title is that of General. 
This my soldiers have given me. Other nations 
revere the name of King. But no Roman can en- 
dure that name. If you think a royal spirit is the 
noblest spirit of man, I shall be glad if you think 
that such a spirit is mine. But you must never call 
me King." The Romans called these Spaniards bar- 
barians. But even such barbarians could feel the 
grandeur of such words. They brought to Scipio 
the best presents they could give, and did what he 
valued more : they entered into loyal alliances with 
the Romans, which they never broke, and which re- 



THE SCIPIOS. 37 

suited in the expulsion of the Carthaginians from 
Spain. In the year B.C. 206, Gades, now Cadiz, which 
was their last stronghold, surrendered to the Romans, 
and Romans and Spaniards held the whole peninsula 
free from any Carthaginian army or garrison. 

It ought to be said that, so far as we know, Scipio 
deserved this success. He is one of the noblest ex- 
amples, not only of that class of the sterner virtues, 
which we should perhaps call Roman virtues, but of 
that unselfish manliness to which all virtue owes its 
name, and from which indeed it springs. A writer 
as narrow as Livy intimates that Scipio had a pecul- 
iar address in displaying his virtues, and that he did 
this or that for effect. But it is not fair to say that 
when a leader like Scipio went every day into the 
Capitoline temple, and spent a short period in silent 
meditation, he only did this to be " seen of men." 
This is certain, that somehow or other Publius Scipio 
gained that absolute self-control, which, as we have 
seen, won for him the admiration and even the ven- 
eration of barbarous tribes. The same self-control 
and the steady loyalty of the man won for him the 
life-long love as well as the admiration of troops of 
friends. It is not fair to call all this the result of 
that vulgar contrivance, in which a candidate for 
applause tries to purchase it. 

One single incident of Scipio's Spanish career, in 
which he restored a captive lady to her lover, has 
often been the theme of poetry and given the sub- 
ject to art. 



Carthaginians and Romans had not established 



38 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

their dominion over more than half of the penin- 
sula. They seemed to have entirely subdued Cata- 
lonia, Valencia, Murcia, and Andalusia — that is, the 
region east and south of the mountain ranges. The 
Celtiberian tribes in the centre founded a republic 
which was in a certain alliance with the Romans, but 
at this time the Romans scarcely knew, even by 
name, the independent tribes of the north and the 
northwest. A few years after Scipio's success, Cato 
the elder took command in Spain, and there are 
traces of his occupancy there to-day. Whatever 
traveller is fortunate enough to visit in the Pyre- 
nees, the picturesque little town of Jaca, will see 
walls which they say Cato built, and there he estab- 
lished a fortress for the protection of this defile. 
From that time downward the Romans steadily in- 
creased their power in Spain, until for the first four 
centuries of the Christian era Spain '■* ceased to have 
a place in military history," because the conquest 
or assimilation was so complete. Roman soldiers 
married Spanish women, and when their terms of 
service were over, they preferred, as well they might 
do, to remain in beautiful Spain, rather than to go 
back to the harder chances of Italian life. Gradu- 
ally the Latin language took the place of the native 
dialect, and to a certain extent Latin customs took 
the place of native customs. Scipio adopted as his 
son Camilius Scipio, who was the younger son of 
yEmilius Paulus. It was his fortune also to will 
the title of " Africanus." He also volunteered to 
take the province in Spain when he was very young, 
and afterwards in repeated disasters to the Roman 




ROMAN BRIDGE, CUENCA. 

39 



40 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

arms there, he was sent out to that province. This 
was in the year 134 B.C., after the third Punic war. 
It was in this consulship that Numantia fell under 
that terrible siege which is remembered in history by 
the side of the sieges of Saguntum and Saragossa, 
for the signal hardihood and persistency by which 
the beleaguered people held their own. The following 
passage from Cervantes' tragedy of " Numantia " 
recalls the story of those days of terrible suffering 
and brave endurance. 

MORANDO. 

Why so swiftly art thou flying ? 

Go not, Lira, — let me still 

Taste what may my spirit fill 
With glad life, even while I 'm dying. 
Lira, let mine eyes awhile 

Gaze upon thy loveliness 

Since so deep is my distress, 
Thus it would its pangs beguile. 

sweetest Lyre, that soundest so, 
For ever yi my phantasy, 
With such delicious harmony 

It turns to glory all my woe ! 

What now ? What stand'st thou mutely thinking ? 
Thou of my soul the only treasure. 

' LIRA. 

1 'm thinking how thy dream of pleasure, 
And mine so fast away is sinking : 

It will not fall beneath the hand 
Of him who wastes our native land ; 
For long, or e'er the war be o'er, 
My hapless life will be no more. 

MORANDO. 
Joy of my soul, what hast thou said ? 



THE SCIPIOS. 41 

LIRA. 

That I am worn with hunger so, 

That quickly will the o'erpowering woe 
For ever break my vital thread. 

What bridal rapture dost thou dream 

From one at such a sad extreme ? 

For, trust me, ere an hour be past, 

I fear I shall have breathed my last. 
My brother fainted yesterday, 

By wasting hunger overborne ; 

And then my mother, all outworn 
By hunger, slowly sunk away. 
And if my health can struggle yet 
' With hunger's cruel power, in truth 

It is because my stronger youth 
Its wasting force hath better met. 
But now so many a day hath passed, 

Since aught I 've had its powers to strengthen 

It can no more the conflict lengthen, 
But it must faint and fail at last. 



MORANDO. 

Lira, dry thy weeping eyes ; 

But, ah ! let mine, my love, the more 
Their overflowing rivers pour, 

Wailing thy wretched agonies. 

But though thou still art held in strife 
With hunger thus incessantly, 
Of hunger still thou shalt not die, 

So long as I retain my life. 

I offer here, from yon high wall 
To leap o'er ditch and battlement : 
Thy death one instant to prevent, 

I fear not on mine own to fall : 

The bread the Roman eateth now 
I '11 snatch away, and bear to thee ; 
For oh, 't is worse than death to see, 

Lady, thy dreadful state of woe ! 



42 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



LIRA. 

Thou speakest like a lover : — still, 
Morando, surely, 't were not good 
That I should find a joy in food 

For which thy life-blood thou mayst spill. 

But little will that succor be, 

Whate'er of booty thou canst make ; 
While thou a surer way dost take 

To lose thyself than win for me. 

Enjoy thou still thy youthful prime 
In fresh and blooming years elate ; 
My life is nothing to the state,— 

Thine, every thing at such a time. 

Its noblest bulwark thou canst be 
Against the fierce and crafty foe : 
What can the feeble prowess do 

Of such a wretched maid as me ? 













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CHAPTER IV. 



SERTORIUS. 



The most picturesque, perhaps, of the separate 
episodes in the Roman conquest is to be found in 
the story of Sertorius, which has accordingly been 
seized upon by one modern author and another for 
romance or drama. His life is told at length by 
Plutarch in his gossiping way. 

Quintus Sertorius was a soldier of first-rate ability 
and of good education, and of Sabine birth. He 
served under Marius, when the German tribes first 
came down on Italy, and in the civil wars he took 
the side of Marius against Sylla. After Sylla was 
master of Rome, Sertorius hastened into Spain, 
where he had formerly served, and by his popularity 
with the natives, and by arming the Romans, hoped 
to maintain himself against any of Sylla's partisans. 

Finding his force insufficient, he seized a fleet at 
New Carthage, our Carthagena, and crossed to Africa. 
It was in this escape from his enemies that he went 
through the Straits of Gibraltar, and sailing outward, 
keeping the Spanish shore on his right hand, landed 
a little above the mouth of the river Baetis, where it 
falls into the Atlantic sea, and gives the name to 
that part of Spain. Here he met with seamen re- 

44 



SERTORIUS. 45 

cently arrived from the " Atlantic islands," two in 
number, divided from one another only by a narrow 
channel, and distant from the coast of Africa ten 
thousand furlongs. " These islands," he was told, 
" are called the Islands of the Blest ; rains fall there 
seldom, and in moderate showers, but for the most 
part, they have gentle breezes, bringing along with 
them soft dews, which render the soil not only rich 
for ploughing and planting, but so abundantly fruit- 
ful that it produces spontaneously an abundance of 
delicate fruits, sufficient to feed the inhabitants, who 
may here enjoy all things without trouble or labor. 
The seasons of the year are temperate, and the 
transitions from one to another so moderate that 
the air is almost always serene and pleasant. The 
rough northerly and easterly winds which blow from 
the coasts of Europe and Africa, dissipated in the 
vast open space, utterly lose their force before they 
reach the islands. The soft western and southerly 
winds which breathe upon them sometimes produce 
gently sprinkling showers, which they convey along 
with them from the sea, but more usually bring days 
of moist, bright weather, cooling and gently fertiliz- 
ing the soil, so that the firm belief prevails, even 
among the barbarians, that this is the seat of the 
blessed, and that these are the Elysian Fields cele- 
brated by Homer. 

" When Sertorius heard this account he was seized 
with a wonderful passion for these islands, and had 
an extreme desire to go and live there in peace and 
quietness, and safe from oppression and unending 
wars. But his inclinations were perceived by the 



46 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Sicilian pirates, whom he had under his nominal 
command. They desired not peace nor quiet, but 
riches and spoils, and they immediately forsook him, 
and sailed away into Africa to assist Ascalis, the son 
of Iphtha, and to help to restore him to his kingdom 
of Mauritania." 

Sertorius was not discouraged, but landed in Mauri- 
tania, and took one side in the civil war there. He 
opened the grave of Antaeus, which he found in the 
city of Tingis, and found the body sixty cubits in. 
length. He made himself master of all Mauritania. 
The Lusitanians, inhabiting the western part of the 
Spanish peninsula, hearing of his success, asked him 
to become their ruler, and he accepted the trust. It 
was then that he obtained possession of the famous 
white hind, the story of which is so closely connected 
with his name. " A countryman named Spanus, 
who lived in those parts, meeting by chance a hind 
that had recently calved flying from the hunters, let 
the dam go, and pursuing the fawn, took it, wonder- 
fully pleased with the rarity of the color, which was 
all milk-white. As at that time Sertorius was living 
in the neighborhood, and accepted gladly any pres- 
ents of fruit, fowl, or venison that the country af- 
forded, and rewarded liberally those who presented 
them, the countryman brought him his young hind. 
Sertorius took it, and was well pleased with it at first 
sight. When in time he had made it so tame and 
gentle that it would come when he called, and follow 
him wheresoever he went, and could endure the 
noise and tumult of the camp, knowing well that un- 
civilized people are naturally prone to superstition, 



SEkTORlus. 47 

by little and little he raised it into something super- 
natural, saying that it was given him by the goddess 
Diana, and that it revealed to him many secrets." 

This was one of the devices by which he recom- 
mended himself to the Lusitanian tribes. Plutarch 
says that they really regarded him as divine, and 
followed him, confident in his supernatural powers. 

He had landed in Lusitania with only twenty-six 
hundred men, whom he called Romans, and seven 
hundred Africans. The Lusitanians added fifty 
seven hundred more. With a force so insignificant 
he made war against five Roman generals, who had 
armies amounting to nearly one hundred and thirty 
thousand men. In this war for a long time he was 
superior. He beat Cotta in a sea fight. On land he 
routed Aufidius, Domitius, Thoranius, and Metellus 
himself. Manlius came from Gaul to assist Metel- 
lus, and Pompey was sent in all haste from Rome 
with considerable force as an additional relief. 

Sertorius held his own against these combined 
forces. He introduced discipline into the Spanish 
ranks, and taught the Spaniards that they were quite 
as good men as the Romans. He was not satisfied 
with improvements in war. He watched the train- 
ing of the people in the arts, and was specially care- 
ful of their education. From all the tribes he called 
for the boys of good parents and placed them in a 
school which he founded at Osca — now Huesca — in 
the northeast of Spain. There is at this day a uni- 
versity there which preserves his name in the title 
of the University of Sertorius. Here they had Ro- 
man and Greek masters, so that, as he said, they 



48 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

might be fit when the time came to take their share 
in the government. Plutarch says that they were 
really hostages while he called them students. How- 
ever this may be, the fathers were well pleased to 
see them dressed in the costume of young Roman 
gentlemen, and were not displeased at the care taken 
of their sons. It is certain that Sertorius is to be 
counted as one of the civilizers of Spain, Nor is 
there any history more interesting, of a great leader 
whose duty it has been to uplift and encourage 
ignorant and almost barbarous tribes. 

So sagacious were his methods of elevating the 
fine race of men with which he had to do, that we 
wish we had more detail. But alas, all the archives 
of his government, and the accounts, said to have 
been considerable, of the earlier history of Lusitania, 
perished in the confusions which accompanied his 
fall. It is clear that he had the enthusiastic sup- 
port of his people^ and apparently this was due to 
hearty affection. Plutarch says it was a custom 
among these tribes that " when a commander was 
slain in battle those who attended his person fought 
it out till they all died with him, which the inhabi- 
tants of those countries called an offering or libation. 
There were few Spanish commanders, therefore, that 
had any considerable guard or number of attend- 
ants ; but Sertorius was followed by thousands who 
offered themselves as his body-guard and vowed to 
spend their blood with him. It is said that when 
his army was once defeated, and hard pressed by the 
enemy, his men took him up on their shoulders and 
passed him from one to another till they carried him 



3EAT0K1US. 49 

into the city, and only when they had thus placed 
their general in safety, provided afterwards each man 
for his own security." 

Sertorius certainly had great resource as a com- 
mander, and knew how to use the circumstances as 
well as the men with whom he had to do. He had 
a singular success in his achievement against the 
Characitanians. " These are a people beyond the 
river Tagus, who inhabit neither cities nor towns, 
but live in a vast high hill, within the deep dens and 
caves of the rocks, the mouths of which open all tow- 
ards the north. The country below is of a soil 
resembling a light clay, so loose as easily to break 
into powder, and is not firm enough to bear any one 
that treads upon it, and if you touch it in the least, 
it flies about like ashes or unslaked lime. In any 
danger of war these people descend into their caves, 
and carrying in their booty and prey along with them, 
stay quietly within, secure from every attack. And 
when Sertorius, leaving Metellus some distance off, 
had placed his camp near this hill, they slighted and 
despised him, imagining that he retired into these 
parts being overthrown by the Romans. And 
whether out of anger and resentment, or out of his 
unwillingness to be thought to fly from his enemies, 
early in the morning he rode up to view the situa- 
tion of the place. But finding there was no way to 
come at it, as he rode about, threatening them in 
vain and disconcerted, he took notice that the wind 
raised the dust and carried it up toward the caves of 
the Characitanians, the mouths of which, as I said 
before, opened toward the north, and the northerly 



SO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

wind, which some call Caecias, prevailing most in 
those parts, coming up out of moist plains or moun- 
tains covered with snow, at this particular time, in 
heat of summer, being further supplied and increased 
by the melting of the ice in the northern regions, 
blew a delightful fresh gale, cooling and refreshing 
the Characitanians and their cattle all the day long. 
Sertorius, considering Well all circumstances in 
which either the information of the inhabitants or 
his own experience had instructed him, commanded 
his soldiers to shovel up a great quantity of this 
light, dusty earth, to heap it up together, and make 
a mound of it over against the hill in which these 
barbarous people resided, who, imagining that all this 
preparation was for raising a mound to get at them, 
only mocked and laughed at it. However, he con- 
tinued the work till the evening, and brought his 
soldiers back into their camp. The next morning a 
gentle breeze at first arose, and moved the lightest 
parts of the earth, and dispersed it about as the chaff 
before the wind, but when the sun coming to be 
higher, the strong northerly wind had covered the 
hills with dust, the soldiers came and turned this 
mound of earth over and over, and broke the hard 
clods in pieces, whilst others on horseback rode 
through it backward and forward, and raised a cloud 
of dust into the air, then with the wind the whole 
of it was carried away and blown into the dwellings 
of the Characitanians, all lying open to the north. 
And there being no other vent or breathing-place 
than that through which the Csecias rushed in upon 
them, it quickly blinded their eyes, and filled their 



SERTORIUS. 51 

lungs, and all but choked them, whilst they strove to 
draw in the rough air mingled with dust and pow- 
dered earth. Nor were they able, with all they could 
do, to hold out above two days, but yielded up them- 
selves on the third, adding, by their defeat, not so 
much to the power of Sertorius as to his renown in 
proving that he was still able to conquer places by 
art, which were impregnable by the force of arms." 

Sertorius was the ruler of the tribes, which he 
was civilizing, for nearly ten years. He was able in 
that time to see the fulfilment of some of the plans 
which he made for his people. It was one of the 
darkest periods of the civil wars of Rome, and many 
a Roman senator, obliged to flee for his life, was 
glad to follow Sertorius's example, and to join him 
among his Lusitanian admirers. The reader will 
understand that before the end of the success of Ser- 
torius he was more than the ruler of the country 
we call Portugal. He was the recognized master of 
more than half of Spain. He made his new allies 
accept the position as he understood it. He had 
come there with a Roman army. They were not to 
suppose that they were Spanish rebels. They were 
to understand that he was a Roman officer, and that 
he was teaching them how great and how desirable 
a thing was the gentle sway of Rome. Had Rome 
only had a chief able to see the grandeur of this 
position, had the life of this remarkable man been 
spared, we should not speak of him, as we are apt to, 
as a sort of Robin Hood, but should rate him as he 
was, as one of the more remarkable leaders of man- 
kind. But Sylla did not want to encourage other 



52 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

leaders, whose power might come too near his own. 
Army after army was despatched to crush Sertorius, 
and with varying success. For himself, he sent word 
to Metellus and to Pompey that he would lay down 
his arms and live a private life, if he were allowed to 
return home. He had rather, he said, live as the 
meanest citizen in Rome than be supreme com- 
mander of all other cities, if he were an exile. He 
was wholly attached to his mother, and when he 
heard of her death he almost died himself. For 
seven days he lay in his tent without admitting his 
nearest friends. It was only with the greatest diffi- 
culty that he was persuaded to resume the command 
of his army. Mithridates, in Asia Minor, was trying 
to make head again against Sylla. Hearing of the 
success of Sertorius, he sent an embassy to him to 
arrange some cooperation against their common 
enemy. But Sertorius answered that Mithridates 
might reign in Bithynia and Cappadocia, because 
they had never belonged to Rome ; but he would 
have no part in assisting him to regain that part of 
Asia Minor which the Romans had made a province. 
On this basis, Mithridates in the east and Ser- 
torius in the west made a treaty. Sertorius was 
strong enough to send Marius, one of his generals, 
with an army to assist Mithridates, and the alliance 
was successful. But at this moment, unfortunately, 
the senators around Sertorius in Spain, who had not, 
it would seem, risen higher than the level of the 
senators left at home, became envious of his au- 
thority. They made a conspiracy against him, and 
assassinated him at a feast to which he had invited 



SERTORIUS. 



53 



them. In this act of treachery closed the most 
interesting episode in the slow steps by which bar- 
barous Spain became one of the most highly culti- 
vated provinces in the Roman empire. 

The story of Sertorius is so romantic that it has 
been eagerly seized upon by the writers of poetry in 
Spain and in other lands. Corneille takes from it 
the subject of one of his more celebrated tragedies. 
An English author has made it the subject of his 
poem called the " The White Hind of Sertorius." 





CHAPTER V. 

JULIUS CAESAR IN SPAIN. 

The death of Sertorius took place in the year 72 
B.C. His rule, on the whole beneficent, had lasted 
nearly ten years. His people in general submitted 
to the Romans. Pompey followed up his successes, 
and considered Spain as one of the provinces on 
which he could rely. It was nearly thirty years after 
the death of Sertorius that, in the great contest be- 
tween Julius Caesar and that part of the senate 
which adhered tp Pompey and his family, the de- 
cisive battle of the world was fought out in Southern 
Spain. This was not much more than a year before 
Caesar was killed in the senate-house at Rome. 
The younger Pompey was his antagonist. Caesar 
was following up his own victories in Africa, and had 
come to Spain to end the civil war in person. The 
decisive battle was at Munda. 

Pompey seems really to have supposed that he 
was superior in force, — so large a proportion of 
Caesar's men were new levies. He certainly had 
the advantage of the ground. The narrative of the 
battle is not more intelligible than are the narratives 
of most battles where we have not the advantage of 
an accurate map of the«place. But it is certain that 

54 



JULIUS C^SAR IN SPAIN. 



55 



Pompey and his army had the advantage of the 
fortifications of the town of Munda, and apparently 
of considerable military stores there.* He fixed his 
camp about five miles from Caesar's, where he had 
there advantages to rely upon. The country between 




j*lli.&v t r.j J 4 



JULIUS C^SAR. 

the two armies was flat, but Pompey's front was pro- 
tected by a stream, which was not easy to cross. 
On his left, particularly, it flowed through marshy 

* Munda was not far from the city of Cordova, and the spot is to 
be sought for somewhere in the valley of the Guadalquiver. The 
author of Carmen weaves in with that story, an amusing disquisition 
on the discovery of the site of the city. 



5 6 THE STORY OF SPAIN.- 

ground which was wellnigh impracticable. Not- 
withstanding this, Caesar determined to attack him 
where he was, though he himself seems to have 
thought that this was somewhat rash. He saw that 
he must push his enemy in front, so well defended 
were both wings. The day was magnificent. " It 
almost seemed as if the immortal gods themselves 
had given such wonderful weather — just as he could 
have chosen it — for battle." It was early in March, 
and those who have travelled in Andalusia at that 
time can imagine what a day it was, of which a con- 
temporary writer speaks such words. Every man 
knew that the final issue of the long struggle had 
come. An hour might decide it. It was the Water- 
loo of the conflict between the Senate and the 
Imperator. 

Caesar's men pressed forward expecting to meet 
their enemy. But Pompey's men did not abandon 
at the first their faYorable position. They awaited 
attack. Their line of battle consisted of thirteen 
legions of heavy infantry, and the wings were covered 
by cavalry. They had six thousand light infantry 
beside, and almost as many native " auxiliaries." 
Caesar's army was made up of eighty cohorts of 
infantry, and eight thousand cavalry. When he 
found that he could not startle Pompey's troops 
from their secure position, he felt himself, as has 
been said, how critical was his position ; and for a 
while paused, to reconsider the ground. His men 
were displeased by this delay, and the enemy was 
encouraged. They were lured to their first mistake. 
They delivered an attack, while they should still 



JULIUS C^SAR IN SPAIN. S7 

have awaited it, on their left. Caesar's extreme right 
was formed by the " decumani," which held their 
own ; they were supported by the 3d and 5th legions 
on their left. The conflict was severe and ever 
wavering, but on the extreme of the wings of both 
armies Caesar's veterans not only held their own, 
but gradually drove their enemy to give way a little. 
On the instant Caesar's cavalry pounced on the 
shattered wing, though the rough country on which 
it fell back was all unfit for a charge. The army of 
Pompey was broken and fell back into the town of 
Munda. 

In that fight more than thirty thousand men had 
fallen, among whom were Sextus Pompey, Labienus, 
Attius Varus, and other distinguished officers. 
Caesar himself, at one moment, when he saw a 
legion broken, rallied it in person, and took the field 
as a private soldier might have done. He ran through 
the ranks and cried to his men : " Are you not 
ashamed to deliver me into the hands of boys?" 
And when the battle was won, he told his friends 
that he had often fought for victory before, but that 
this was the first time he had ever fought for his life. 
In this battle, as has been said, the war with Pom- 
pey and his army was virtually ended. It was 
fought on the day of the Feast of Bacchus, fouryears, 
to a day, after Pompey had left Rome to begin the 
war, which had cost him his life, and now virtually 
came to an end as Sextus Pompey died. 

Julius Caesar celebrated his victory by a triumph. 
This ceremonial was not very kindly taken at Rome. 
It was said, not unnaturally, that a victory gained 



58 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

over fellow-countrymen was not one which the peo- 
ple of Rome should be expected to rejoice in unani- 
mously. This was not the last triumph for which 
Spain gave the cause. Augustus, more than once, 
conceded the same honor to the lieutenants to whom 
he entrusted its subjugation. 

The Spaniards took the occasion of the civil wars 
of the Triumvirate to do what they could in re- 
asserting their independence. Even when Augustus 
closed the gates of the Temple of Janus, it was ac- 
knowledged that Spain was not wholly at peace. 
But civil war was ended, and the complaints of such 
distant barbarians were not permitted to inter- 
fere with the rejoicing at the capital. Augustus, 
however, made it his first duty to go to Spain in 
person, and bring the peninsula to real peace. He 
seldom took the field himself. Indeed he spent a 
considerable time on his sick-bed at Tarraco, now 
Tarragona. The regular passage between Italy and 
Spain was from Rome to this seaport. The Roman 
lieutenants were too strong for the Spanish rebels, 
even when they were defending their mountain 
passes. By the time Augustus had recovered, peace 
was really secured, and he devoted himself,»in per- 
son, to those arrangements which should make it 
permanent. He built new cities in the plains, in 
which he compelled the mountaineers to reside* He 
established military colonies for his soldiers, and gave 
them for their clients, the Spaniards who had been 
compelled to submit to him. Large numbers of the 
defeated were sold into captivity. It is thus that 
some of the finest cities of Spain were established. 



illpi.l 




,.,:,.,'., ' , . '^:M\ 



60 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Most of them retain a memorial of their origin in 
their present names. Thus Saragossa was " Caesar- 
Augusta." The site was well chosen as convenient 
for communication between the East and the West, 
and between the Pyrenees and the Tagus. In the 
north of Portugal, about twenty-five miles from 
Oporto, the city of Braga preserves the name of 
"Bracata-Augusta." A modern traveller speaks of 
the scenery in the neighborhood as " the most lovely 
in all Portugal." The Romans gave it the name of 
the Elysian Fields, and called the Lima River by the 
name of Lethe or the River of Oblivion. " The banks 
of the Lima equal any thing Europe contains." 
Merida is the " Emerita-Augusta " of the emperor. 
It is still called " the Rome of Spain." The mag- 
nificent bridge over the Guadiana, built by Trajan, 
still stands a noble monument of Roman skill. It is 
half a mile long, twenty-six feet broad, and thirty- 
three feet above the bed of the river. It consists of 
eighty-one arches, constructed of granite. Merida 
was the capital of the province of Lusitania, the 
smallest of the three provinces into which Rome 
divided the peninsula. One of the great reservoirs 
in the neighborhood of Merida retains the name of 
the Lake of Proserpine. Nowhere in Europe, in- 
deed, can be found more interesting memorials of 
Roman engineering than in Spain. 

Badajos in the same neighborhood is a corruption 
from " Pax Augusta." And here also may be found 
Roman memorials. In the south, Cordova, which 
the Romans called Corduba, was the capital of the 
province of Baetica, and so completely was the spirit 



JULIUS C&SAR IN SPAIN. 6l 

of insurrection broken that it was not necessary to 
maintain here any military force. Strabo tells us 
that in the whole country around the Bsetis or 
Guadalquiver, the natives had so completely adopted 
the Roman customs that they had even forgotten 
their own native tongue. Of the three provinces, 
that of which Tarraco was the head was the largest. 
In this and in Lusitania, however, a single legion was 
enough to maintain the authority of Rome. They 
needed these troops only to protect them against 
raids from their own mountaineers. Agriculture, 
trade, and industry flourished through all Spain. 
Italy needed all the grain which she could furnish, 
and the supply of the demand gave an ample market 
to her farmers. In the contest which followed, wars 
and insurrections died away, and in four centuries, as 
we have said, Spain disappears from military history. 
In the fifth century the historian Orosius writing, 
alas, with too little of the spirit of prophecy, says, 
" All Spain fell back into eternal peace." Yet Livy 
writing while Augustus was living, had said that 
Spain, which was the first province outside of Italy 
which Rome attempted to subjugate, was the last of 
all the provinces to be completely subdued. 

Such were the triumphs of peace in the exquisite 
valleys of the south, that, after the Augustan con- 
quest, it was observed that no province in the Roman 
empire produced so long a list of historians, poets, 
and philosophers as the schools of Baetica. 

Indeed, if we left out the Spaniards, the list of the 
authors who have distinguished the early days of the 
empire would seem very meagre. The two Senecas, 



62 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

— father and son, — and the brother of the younger, 
known to us best as the Gallio of the Book of Acts, 
were all born in Cordova. Lucius Seneca, the min- 
ister of Nero, who met death at Nero's command, 
was born in the second or third year of the Christian 
era, and died in the year 65 A.D. During his life- 
time Lucan, the author of the Pharsalia, was born at 
Aduba in Spain, and not long after, the poet Martial 
at Bilbilis, — which is in our Arragon. The rhetori- 
cian, Quintilian, is another Spaniard. He was born at 
Callagurris, now Callahorra, in the upper valley of 
the Ebro. These six distinguished men of letters 
lived in Rome nearly at the same time. It is also 
known that the Emperor Vespasian was favorably 
affected toward Spain, because this was the first 
province whose troops gave a cordial assent to his 
appointment as Imperator. It is easy to see that 
Spain and Spaniards may have been, so to speak, 
the fashion in Rome in the middle of the first 
century of our era and at its close. 

The three Senecas do not seem to have spent 
much time in Spain. Lucan died in his twenty- 
seventh year. Martial returned to Spain at the end 
of his life. He went there in the third year of 
Trajan, the year 100 of our era, and married a 
lady named Marcella, who lived on the banks of 
the Cello. He speaks warmly of her, as he should 
have done from mere gratitude ; for in her house 
on her means he lived for the three remaining years 
of his life. 

In a playful little ode to his friend Licianus or 
Licinianus, Martial amuses himself by bringing in a 



JULIUS C&SAR IN SPAIN. 63 

sheaf of the names of different places in Spain, with 
some of which apparently Licianus was familiar. 

Come and see our Spaniards, Lician, 

Other lands shall never shame us ; 
Come and see my Bilbilis 

Both for arms and horses famous. 
Come to craggy Vadavero ; , 

Come and and rest you in the groves 
Of my dainty, sweet Botrodes, 

Which the blithe Pomona loves. 
You shall bathe in warm Congedus 

Which the water-nymphs environ ; 
Or in freezing Salo cool you, 

Where we cool our blades of iron. 
Beasts and birds shall make your dinner, 

As you cross Vobisca's meadows, 
Golden Tagus shall refresh you 

Underneath her leafy shadows. 

Are you thirsty ? here 's Dircenna, 

And Nemea's melted snow r s ; 
Or, when fierce December rages, 

And the Gallic north-wind blows, 
We '11 go down to Tarragona, 

To Laletania repair. 
You shall shoot the does with arrows, 

You shall shoot the wild boar there ; 
The keeper shall bring home the stag, 

And you on horseback course the hare. 

Far away be squabbling clients, 

Far away Liburnus too ; 
Not a dun shall break your slumbers, 

You shall sleep the morning through. 
You shall hear no woman whimper, 

And no senator debate ; 
Other men to bores shall listen, 

Others hear the fools dilate. 



64 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

You know how to taste the pleasure 

When your Sura wins his meed. 
We know how to keep the treasure — 

How to live, and live indeed. 

In quite a different strain from that of this playful 
poem of Martial's is an ode by Prudentius, also a 
Spaniard, the Christian poet of the fifth century. 
Probably Prudentius had in mind Martial's catalogue 
of hard proper names, as he tried his skill in weaving 
into Sapphic and Adonian verses the names of the 
Spanish cities. He also was born, like Martial, in 
the modern Arragon. As it happens, none of his 
names are the same as those used by Martial, but the 
reader will be able to place most of them. 

The verses come at the beginning of a long poem, 
called the " Peristephanior," which is an elaborate 
and somewhat theological tribute to the memory of 
the martyrs of the Church. It will be seen that he 
claims credit for his own Saragossa, that she had 
more than any of suoh martyrs among the Spanish 
cities. What is curious is, that he intimates that 
Rome herself scarcely exceeds her in this regard. 

Dear Saragossa offers, all together, 
Sacred memorials of her eighteen martyrs ; 
Well may we hail her " City of Augustus," * 
rich with such Treasure ! 

Thou who hast been the home of mighty Angels, 
Thou shalt not fear, though worlds shall fall to ruin, 
Thou who canst offer, all at once, so many 
gifts to a Saviour ! 

When the great God shall scatter far his Lightnings, 
Put forth at last His hand to weigh the Sinner 

* " Csesar- Augusta, " whence Saragossa. 




ROMAN AQUEDUCT, SEGOVIA. 
65 



66 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

From the red cloud in which so long He hides it, 
judging the Nations, 

Then shall each city, from our many peoples, 
Hasten to meet Christ Jesus with their Tributes, 
And in rich baskets bear along the priceless 
gifts of their Treasures. 

Dear Cyprianus, eloquent and learned, 
African Carthage offers Him thy relics ; 
Cordova brings Acisclus and Zoilus, 
while Tarragona 

Weaves in one diadem her triple honors, 
And, on the crown which Fructuosus left her, 
Fastens twin gems which shine with equal glory, 
blazing with Fire. 

Little Gerunda, rich in sacred relics, 
Joins with the rest in honor of her Felix ; 
Our Calagorris * joins the host to carry 
two whom we honor. 

Barcelona brings the ashes of Circufas, 
Beautiful Narbo bears* along her Paulus, 
Excellent Aretas never will forget thee, 
holy Gensesis ! 

Merida, queen of Lusitanian peoples, 
Going to meet thy Saviour, thou shalt carry 
Her, the brave girl whom thou dost well remember, 
up to the Altar ! 

Noble Complutum, in the same procession, 
Carries together Pastor and his Justus, 
Pressing, as brother by the side of brother, 
one bed of Glory. 

Tingis among Massilian kings remembers 
Cassian the blest, still living in his ashes, 

* Calagorris was the birthplace of Prudentius. 



JULIUS C&SAR IN SPAIN. 6y 

Who with Christ's yoke — the yoke so light and easy — 
conquered the Nations. 

Nay, all the cities, all the little hamlets, 
Gladly come forward with such honored tribute ; 
One, two, or three they offer to the Saviour 
those who confessed Him. 

Thou, Saragossa, city of the Caesars, 
Thou shalt record twice nine upon thy banner, 
Wearing the olive crown of Peace Eternal 
won in his Service. 

Thou, in such graces richer than the richest, 
Standest supreme amid thy crowd of martyrs, 
Honored beyond all others in the radiance 
of Light Eternal ! 

Scarcely great Carthage, parent of the nations, 
Scarcely great Rome, upon her throne of Empire, 
Vying with thee in rivalry of service, 
boasts of such Glory ! 

If the American reader will remember that the 
peaceful domination of Spain by Rome lasted four 
hundred years without a serious ripple, and if he will 
also remember that this is a longer period than has 
passed since the discovery of America by Columbus, 
he will understand, as we are not apt to, how Spain 
became largely Roman in those centuries. The stu- 
dent of Roman antiquities has therefore, as has been 
implied, much to learn in travelling in Spain. He 
may find in an ancient town the same arrangements 
of the atrium and the chambers around it, which 
have puzzled him as he read the classics. He will 
find the curtain stretched over the atrium to protect 
it from the sun or a sudden shower. He will find 



68 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

the implurium in the middle, the cubicula and other 
rooms arranged substantially as in classical times. 
He will understand exactly what defence such Ro- 
man city as Jaca, which has been spoken of, offered 
against the attacks of armies which had no cannon. 
From well-built fortifications like these, round to 
such details as the bells jingled by a train of mules, 
the traveller who has even a smattering of classical 
reading is reminded every time he is in Spain of the 
Roman origin of manners and customs. 

But the most remarkable memorial of Rome in 
Spain is in the Spanish language. In a later chapter 
of this book we shall try to show how under the in- 
fluence of Northern invaders the Latin of Quintilian 
and Lucan gave way and became eventually the 
Spanish of to-day. It is enough here to say that 
the roots of the Spanish language are almost with- 
out exception Latin. The traveller meets them in 
places where he would least expect them. Thus in 
the days of the early settlement of a wild country, as 
in the woods of Wisconsin or of Maine to-day, the 
wayfarer in the wilderness knows that when he 
comes to a farm he may expect shelter and some 
form of hospitality. The trace of such a stage of 
civilization lingers in the Spanish language, where the 
word fonda, derived from the Latin fttndus, a farm, is 
now the word for an inn, or what in the East would 
be called a caravansary. With such roots the Gothic 
invaders w r orked strange havoc in forming the gram- 
mar of their language, and Spanish may be called a 
language of Latin radicals with a Teutonic con- 
struction. 



JULIUS CyESAR IN SPAIN. 



69 



We have not space here to follow out the curious 
illustrations of the persistency by which the Roman 
language has held its own, century after century. 
But even a novice in the Spanish language will be 
interested in studying such illustrations, and they 
force themselves upon the attention of every travel- 
ler. It follows, of course, that to natives of the 
country the classical literature of Rome may become 
almost as familiar as their own. 




PART II. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ATAULPHUS — EVARIC — 4OO-50O A.D. 

The peaceful condition of affairs which removed 
Spain from military history for four centuries, came 
to an end when the Northern invaders from the 
forests of Germany poured down upon Southern 
Europe. The southern provinces of France, which 
were so completely under Roman sway that they 
are spoken of as The Province, and even now known 
as " Provence," held back the invaders from Spain 
only so long as their comforts and wealth satisfied 
the barbarian necessities. From the beginning of 
the invasion of Western Europe the destinies of 
Spain, had she known it, were changed. The com- 
parative serenity, which Orosius even then described 
as eternal peace, was at an end. There have been 
intervals when, for a generation or two, Spain has 
known some such tranquillity within her own borders, 
but it has never happened since that for four cen- 
turies together she was " withdrawn from military 
history." 

We are to observe in the story, to which we now 
introduce the reader, of the Conquest of Spain by 
the Goths, and the permanent establishment of a 
Gothic dynasty there, that this dynasty long consid- 

73 



74 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

ered Southern France as its military base, so that in 
Southern France were its favorite capitals. The ele- 
gant Roman civilization of Spain of which we have 
spoken belonged in the south of Spain. It founded 
centres in the cities of Cordova, Hispalis, and Cadiz.* 
But between the fertile valley of the Guadalquiver, 
where were the luxuries of Roman civilization, and 
the Northern Pyrenees, were hundreds of miles of 
country but little occupied, and, in some mountain 
valleys, a sort of Scotch highlands still in the posses- 
sion of barbarous tribes. In the cities of the north- 
east and the country behind them, there was the 
wealth and prosperity which belonged to their com- 
mercial position. Such wealth and prosperity 
attracted the attention of the Gothic settlers in 
Provence, and as soon as they were strong enough 
they seized upon them. The advance of their armies 
pressed before them southward, their vandal pre- 
cursors, into the valley of the Guadalquiver, and 
some time elapsed before the Gothic leaders 
themselves made that region a place of favor- 
ite residence. It took its name Andalusia, origi- 
nally Vandalusia, from its new possessors. In- 
deed, the history of the conquest of all Spain 
resembles that of other conquests where a strong 
military power takes possession of a region of a 
more refined civilization. Those who are conquered 
in arms subdue their conquerors in the gradual em- 
pire of the arts. And the history which we are to 
follow, whether of social organization or of religious 
controversy, is this history of action and reaction. 
We shall find the strong organization and the vigor- 



A TA ULPHUS—E VA RIC. 7 5 

ous military hand of the Goths steadily taking pos- 
session of Spain. On the other hand, we shall find 
the arts, the accomplishments, or, one may say, the 
civilities of Southern Spain gradually taking hold of 
the Goths. At the beginning we shall find the Goths 
retaining their seats of government at Narbonne, at 
Toulouse, and at Aries, on the northern side of the 
Pyrenees. At the end we shall find that their capi- 
tals were in Spain, and that their French possessions 
w T ere regarded more as outlying provinces. 

English readers may find a rough parallel with 
this gradual occupation in the possession of England 
By the Normans. Just as the Norman dukes gradu- 
ally found it a greater thing to be kings of England 
than to be dukes of Normandy, and as finally their 
Norman possessions fell away or were torn away, so 
the Gothic conquerors of Spain began by consider- 
ing Spain the outlying province, but ended in sur- 
rendering more or less unwillingly their original 
possessions on the north of the Pyrenees. 

In that remarkable development of civilization 
which is connected with the name of Provence, to 
which the world has owed so much and to which, 
but for the stupidity and cruelty of Dominic, it 
might have owed so much more, a large part is 
due to the infusion of Northern blood by the 
arrival and conquest of the Goths. New vigor 
came to the highly civilized Roman province from 
that manliness which is innate in Teutonic institu- 
tions. At the beginning of the fifth century the 
Roman general Stilicho, gathering every man he 
could command, to keep out the Northern deluge 



76 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

from Italy, stripped Southern Gaul of troops. It 
was simply a matter of course then that one wave 
of the deluge flowed west and overran Gaul. They 
overpowered the garrisons of Franks and Alemans 
whom Stilicho had left to guard the fords of the 
upper Rhine ; they even took these garrisons into 
their train, and, on the last day of the year, " like 
a sullen winter storm," swept into undefended Gaul. 
They stopped only at the foot of the Pyrenees. The 
Basques, who were used to the cold of winter and not 
used to be interfered with by conquerors, arrested 
their progress. From that moment to this moment 
descendants of these Northern tribes have lived in 
what we call Southern France, nor did many years 
elapse before such conquerors found their way across 
or around the mountains. The Sueves plundered 
Galicia, the Alans Lusitania, and the Vandals 
Bcetica. In such incursions Rome could do noth- 
ing to interfere. She was herself besieged by Alaric, 
was obliged to capitulate and to pay an enormous 
ransom to her conquerors. This ransom consisted 
of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, 4,000 tunics 
of silk, 3,000 pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and 3,000 
pounds of pepper, the pepper being then worth 
almost as much as gold. 

Fortunately for the Roman emperor, Alaric died 
before the year was ended. The Romans then began to 
negotiate with Ataulphus,* with whom, as the reader 
will see, they had one valuable intercessor. As a 
result of these negotiations all actual conquests were 
respected. The Goths were in Southern France and 

* The Adolphus of Gibbon. 



ATAULPHUS.. 77 

in Spain. It was admitted that they were there. 
They accepted what they already had as a grant. 
They did not object to being called nominal sub- 
jects of the empire on the single condition of mili- 
tary service. Honorius on this condition gave them 
what they had already — two thirds of the cultivated 
lands between the Pyrenees and the Garonne. 
Toulouse was chosen as the residence of their king. 
They retained their own laws, customs, and magis- 
trates, while they acknowledged in form the imperial 
sway. 

ATAULPHUS A.D. 4II-415. 

The wife of Alaric the Goth had a brother named 
Ataulphus, and he became the second king of 
the Visigoths. These people, wild, barbarous, and 
rude at first, were becoming civilized through their 
intercourse with the Romans, for though they were 
so strong and bold that they could overcome the 
Romans in battle, they had much to learn from them 
in using their minds, and in making life worth some- 
thing, instead of spending all their time in killing 
wild beasts for food, and afterward eating them. 

Ataulphus was with his brother-in-law, Alaric, in 
Italy, and helped him in the siege of Rome. There 
he saw Placidia, the sister of the Roman emperor, 
Honorius, and later, when he marched away, he 
carried her off with him as his captive, as these 
barbarian conquerors often did with the women of 
their enemies. 

But Ataulphus loved Placidia so much that he 
wished to marry her, and the Roman maiden, who 



78 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

had fallen in love with her brave, strong suitor, with 
blue eyes and blond hair, consented. Honorius at 
first thought it best to make friends with so power- 
ful a chieftain, and he yielded to him the fertile 
provinces of Southern Gaul, and all that part of the 
Spanish Peninsula which was under Roman rule. 

To take possession of his empire, Ataulphus had 
first to drive out the Sueves and Vandals who were 
ravaging it, but this he did, and in the town of Nar- 
bonne, now a large city in the south of France, 
he established himself with his Roman bride. He 
tried to please Honorius by a constant warfare with 
their mutual enemies the Vandals and Sueves, who 
laid claim also to lands in Spain, and by showing his 
reverence to the Roman supremacy. 

" It was at first my wish," he said, " to destroy the 
Roman name, and erect in its place a Gothic empire, 
taking to myself the place and the powers of Caesar 
Augustus. But when experience taught me that the 
untamable barbarism of the Goths would not suffer 
them to live beneath the sway of law, and that the 
abolition of the institutions on which the state rested 
would involve the ruin of the state itself, I chose the 
glory of renewing and maintaining by Gothic strength 
the fame of'Rome, desiring to go down to posterity 
as the restorer of that Roman power, which it was 
beyond my power to replace. Wherefore I avoid 
war and strive for peace." 

But all the efforts of the barbarian king to keep on 
good terms with Honorius were of no avail. Another 
lover of Placidia, who had wished to marry her, a 
Roman, better suited to her than the Goth by birth 



A TA ULPHUS. 79 

and blood, instigated the emperor to make war upon 
the Goths ; so he and his armies were driven out of 
Gaul, and retreated into their Spanish territories. 

They did not give way without a struggle, fierce 
and sharp, as the battles of the barbarians always 
were. They burned Bordeaux before they left it, and 
the Roman arches which stand there now, bear the 
marks of the Gothic destroyer's hand. 

Ataulphus and his court retreated to Barcelona, 
and there he established himself. Barcelona is a 
lovely city on the Mediterranean Sea, on the shores 
of Catalonia, as has been said, one of the sea- 
ports early visited by traders from the East, raised to 
a town by the Carthaginians, and prospering under 
the Romans, who left behind them columns, altars, 
and temples, of which the ruins are still standing. 

Ataulphus made it the capital of his kingdom 
which he called Hispana-Gothia, and there he strove 
to reign peacefully, adopting the manners and civil- 
ized habits of the Romans. But this it was not easy 
to do, for his Goths, by whom he was surrounded, 
thought he was growing effeminate ; they disliked to 
submit to Roman laws, and they considered the 
Roman soldiers cowardly and lazy, as no doubt 
they were, compared with the turbulent, stormy, 
fight-loving Goths. 

Ataulphus, therefore, had a hard time of it 
between his countrymen who w r ere always grumb- 
ling, and his haughty, handsome, dignified Roman 
wife, Placidia, who probably sometimes found fault 
with the rough manners of her husband. They were 
happy together, however. They had six children, 



80 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

who were growing up to inherit the brave characteris- 
tics of their warlike father, and the refinement of 
their mother. 

The king thought the best way to manage his 
soldiers was to keep them fighting, and as this would 
suit his Roman connections also, he arranged an 
expedition against the Sueves and Vandals, to drive 
these tribes out of the Peninsula, and make himself 
king of the whole of it. But the Goths could not 
fight cheerfully side by side with the Romans; there 
was great dissatisfaction in the camp. 

One day, in the great court-yard of his palace, at 
Barcelona, the king in all his state was watching the 
evolutions of his cavalry, surrounded by his wife and 
children, who were thinking only of the display of 
men and horses, when a dwarf employed about the 
palace stealthily crept up behind Ataulphus, and 
pierced him with a sword. Instantly all was confu- 
sion, but so great was the feeling against the mur- 
dered monarch that th"e poor queen found no one to 
avenge him. Another Goth, Sigeric, succeeded 
him, one of those who most hated the Roman influ- 
ence. The first thing he did was to kill the six 
children of Ataulphus, and, thinking doubtless to 
please the people, he compelled Placidia to walk 
barefoot through the streets of Barcelona. But such 
barbarous conduct caused a reaction in the minds of 
the excitable populace. After a few days of tri- 
umph he was killed in his turn. 

The election of the Goths now fell upon Wallia, 
who was a chief well worthy of their choice. Their 
feeling against the Romans was gratified by an expe- 



A TA ULPHUS. 8 1 

dition against the Roman possessions in Africa, and 
a fleet started in that direction from Barcelona. But 
a violent tempest drove them back and scattered the 
troops, and before they could be collected again, a 
strong army came from Rome towards the Pyrenees, 
and Wallia was obliged to gather the remnant of his 
forces to go against this enemy. 

Fortunately for the Gothic king, the general of the 
Roman forces was Constantius, the Roman lover of 
Placidia. Now that she was a widow, the Emperor 
had told him that he might marry her, if he could 
win her, so he came to love rather than to fight. 
No sooner were the two armies encamped in sight 
of each other than Constantius proposed peace, on 
condition that Wallia should surrender the royal 
widow. 

Wallia was willing enough to do this. It 
smoothed his way to send Placidia back to Rome, 
and she was glad enough to go, having by this time 
come to hold in horror the rude Goths who had 
killed her husband and her children. 

She was transferred to the Roman camp, and to 
the keeping of her faithful suitor Constantius, and 
went back with him to Rome, forgetting, perhaps, 
her troubled life with the Gothic king, and her 
palace at Barcelona. She became, by Constantius, 
the mother of the Emperor Valentinian. 

Another condition of peace was that Wallia should 
march against the other nations who held ground in 
the Peninsula, to secure it for the Romans, and this he 
was ready and willing to do. But he had the same 
difficulty that his predecessor had, to reconcile his 



82 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

followers to fighting for the Romans. He showed 
more tact and judgment than Ataulphus, for before 
he gave any answer to the Roman general, he laid 
the subject before his soldiers, in a little speech, in 
which he said : 

" Invincible Goths ! with arms in our hands we 
have opened a path from the North to the far West ; 
nothing has arrested our progress ; distance, climate, 
mountains, rivers, wild beasts, the valor of many 
enemies, have been opposed to us in vain. Now the 
Vandals, the Alans, the Sueves dare to assail us be- 
hind, while the Romans are in front. It is for you, 
valiant warriors, to choose which most pleases you ; 
which enemy you will take first. 

" Choose as you will, I am confident that your 
bravery will ensure victory, while, at the head of 
men to whom fear is unknown, I have no reason for 
fear myself. If the decision were left to me I should 
remember only that I am your king ; I should listen 
to courage alone, ana select the enemy most worthy 
to contend with us. As to the Romans, you know 
them well enough ; you know how often their cities 
have felt the weight of our swords, how the gates of 
their very capital have opened at our command ; 
why waste any time on such a despicable set of cow- 
ards ? There is more glory in despising than in sub- 
duing them." 

He concluded by advising them to deliver up 
Placidia, — which he had already himself decided 
upon, — and to march against the fierce northern 
tribes, who had the boldness to hold a country 
which of right belonged to the Goths alone. 



ATAULPHUS. 



83 



A shout of approbation followed. Placidia was 
restored and peace made with the Romans. 

Hostilities were now begun in earnest against the 




ROMAN TEMPLE AT VIENNE. (SOUTHERN GAUL.) 

barbarians. The right which Wallia the Goth as- 
serted over the northern regions of the Peninsula 
was questionable, for had the children of the earlier 



84 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

inhabitants been consulted, they might have said 
that Goth and Vandal were alike invaders of their 
mountain homes ; but in those days Might made 
Right. 

At all events the force of the Gothic arms tri- 
umphed. The tribe called the Alans was al- 
most entirely destroyed, and their name even 
disappeared forever from the Peninsula. The Van- 
dals were driven into Gallicia, and the Sueves put 
themselves under the protection of Rome. 

Honorius the emperor was well pleased with 
these successes. He rewarded the victor, Wallia, 
with lands in Southern Gaul, from Toulouse to the 
ocean. 

Wallia made Toulouse the seat of his kingdom, 
and died there after enjoying for two years the fame 
of his conquests. 

Five Visigoth princes reigned there after Wallia, 
of which the first was Theodoric. 

In the second half of the fifth century, the formid- 
able invasion of the Huns happened. These Huns 
were the terror of all the nations of Western Europe. 

They had nothing in common with any of them, 
neither in their appearance, language, nor their habits 
of life. The face of the Hun was sharp and angular, 
the brown skin drawn tight over the bone, with little 
holes for the eyes, which peered out with a vicious 
expression, — his nose was flat and broad, his ears 
enormous and projecting, his beard was scanty. 
" They are beasts on two legs," says an early writer. 

They came across the vast steppes between Asia 
and Europe in enormous chariots, or mounted upon 



ATAULPHUS. 85 

small but untiring horses ; their food on these jour- 
neys was meat, which they ate after keeping it long 
enough between the saddle and the back of the 
horse, and mare's milk. 

This was the people which swept down upon 
Europe, and destroyed every thing in its path. 

Attila their king and leader, " the Scourge of 
God," compelled every tribe he met with to follow 
his armies. With an immense force he crossed the 
Rhine into Gaul. The whole population of the 
country fled before him, for wherever he passed he 
left not one stone upon another, destroying city 
after city, until he came near Orleans, where he 
made a stand. 

Orleans was even then an ancient city, the key to 
the cities around it. At that time there was living 
there the bishop St. Aignan, a brave man who kept 
up the courage of the inhabitants, until a strong 
force arrived to resist the barbarians, composed of 
all the armies of all the different nations then in 
Gaul, combined to further resist the Huns. 

Theodoric the Visigoth, was there with an army 
from Toulouse, successor to Wallia, already a great 
general, who had made successful war with the 
Romans, and gained fame in battle. 

There was a fierce encounter not far from Orleans 
at Chalons, or the Catalaunian plains (451), and in 
the end Attila was conquered. 

He shut himself up in a camp composed of all his 
war chariots ranged around the enclosure in a circle, 
and there, on the day after the battle, the conquer- 
ors could see an immense pyre made of saddles 



86 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

heaped up on one another. Attila himself had 
mounted to the top of it, and there he stood while 
all the Huns left after the bloody combat surrounded 
the pile, with torches in their hands ready to set fire 
to it as soon as they were attacked. 

The allies did not press their advantage, and al- 
lowed the vanquished foe to pass free. Perhaps 
they were filled with a sort of admiration of this lion 
thus standing at bay before them. 

Attila died the next year and his empire per- 
ished with him, but not the terrible remembrance 
of his name and his cruelty. 

Theodoric, the Visigoth, was killed upon the field 
of battle. To him and to the Roman general ^Etius, 
were due the glory of the defeat of the Scourge of 
God. His son became king after him, but he was 
put to death by his brothers, one of whom reigned 
in his stead. He was soon succeeded by the re- 
maining brother, Evaric, who is said, in his turn, to 
have gained his throng by assassinating the king, his 
brother, in his capitol at Toulouse, but perhaps he 
had no immediate hand in the deed. He became a 
great monarch and extended the kingdom of the 
Visigoths far to the north and east, while he was 
master of a great part of Spain. A writer of his 
time gives a glowing idea of the power of Evaric, 
and the splendor of the court at Toulouse, to which 
all nations came as the centre of luxury and pleasure. 

" There was the blue-eyed Saxon, accustomed to 
playing in the surf of the ocean ; the old Sicambrian, 
shaved when he was made a captive, with his hair 
just coming again on his forehead since peace had 



A TA ULPHUS. 87 

restored him to liberty; the Herulean, with his 
cheeks tattooed with blue, the color of the waves; 
the tall Burgundian, seven feet high ; the Ostrogoth, 
proud of the protection of Evaric against the attacks 
of the Huns ; — and envoys came from the far-off king, 
dom of Persia." 

We can imagine this description to be the work of 
a reporter, just as if he were writing an account of 
the collection of people at any modern capital. The 
writer was a poet of the period, he says: " I have 
been at court while the moon has twice completed 
her course, and in all this time have gained but one 
audience from the king ; the master of these regions 
has little leisure for such as I ; the whole universe is 
asking his notice, and awaiting it with submission." 

The predecessors of Evaric had not had much to 
do with Spain, busy with fighting their enemies and 
keeping up their state in Southern Gaul. He de- 
spatched an army into the Peninsula against the 
Sueves, and afterwards drove out the Roman colo- 
nies, so that they renounced all their provinces to 
him, and thenceforward the Goths regarded Spain as 
their lawful inheritance. 

Evaric, therefore, was the founder of the Gothic 
kingdom of Spain. He was also the first legislator 
of the nation. The laws which he collected and 
committed to writing served as the foundation of 
the famous Gothic code, known as the Fuero Juzgo, 
which has had much to do with Spanish jurispru- 
dence ever since. 

By this time the Goths had lost their character of 
barbarians, and were a civilized and enlightened 



88 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

people. The language they found there was that of 
the Romans, Latin, but corrupted by a mixture of 
the tongues of the earlier people. The Goths added 
to the confusion of the mixture their own words, but 
their books were written in Latin. The Spanish 
historian Orosius, about this time, wrote a book to 
combat the notion that all the miseries of mankind 
had been occasioned by Christianity. It was a 
history of the World from the creation to the reign 
of Wallia, relating all the plagues, famines, earth- 
quakes, wars, and all other sorts of calamity that had 
happened since the world began, in order to prove 
that things have been no worse since the birth of 
Christ than they were before. He conceived it to be 
worth while to write this book, because there was a 
very general habit among the Pagans to say that 
all the wickedness then existing was caused by 
Christianity. 

The work was received with great enthusiasm 
when it appeared in* 419; the greater part of it 
has no title as to historic value, but the portion 
describing events nearest the time of the writer are 
still relied on by historians. 

In this period of one hundred years the character 
of the Goths changed from a wild barbaric race to a 
proud and civilized race, whose king held a court 
among the most brilliant in the world. The ances- 
tors of Ataulphus had swept down upon the Roman 
Empire like a whirlwind ; it was his descendant 
Theodoric who, armed for the cause of law and 
order, and fighting side by side with a bishop of 
the church, put a stop to the ravages of the fierce 
barbarian Attila. 



A TA ULPIJUS. 



8 9 



Ataulphus, king of the Goths, was despised by the 
courtly Romans, as scarcely worthy to be the hus- 
band of Placidia, the sister of the Emperor, but in 
less than one hundred years Evaric, king of the 
Goths, regarded himself, doubtless, as equal, if not 
superior, to any reigning monarch. The Romans 
had, by this time, ceased to be the proud and power- 
ful nation they had been, while the arms of the 
Goth everywhere triumphed. 




£JL1CM1E& 



ROMAN GATEWAY AT TREVES. 



Thus far the Visigoth monarchs had not held their 
courts in Spain itself, but made their capitals in 
Southern Gaul. Evaric, at the time of his death, 
was at Aries, a town as old as Julius Caesar, with an 
amphitheatre of which the ruins are still standing. 



go THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

To these Gothic kings, accustomed to the luxuries 
of Provence, Spain appeared a rough territory, to be 
fought for, to be guarded from invasion, but not to 
be lived in, as they notably saw but little of the 
fertile fields of Andalusia. 

The government of the Visigoths was, in appear- 
ance, an absolute monarchy, but the power of the 
king was so restrained by the influence of the pre- 
lates of the church, that it might be called a 
theocracy. In the beginning the Gothic kings were 
controlled by their nobles, they had no royal descent, 
no hereditary houses, but were elected by their peers, 
like the emperors of Germany. 

Every fierce, proud, and haughty chieftain, there- 
fore, considered himself as good as his king, for he 
might become one at any moment. As the dignity 
was originally military, conferred on superior bravery 
and warlike skill, these qualities might in any case 
lead to the throne ; the early electors were too bar- 
barous to form any notion of other qualifications. 
It was the sword which had opened them a path 
from the far North to their fertile abodes in the 
Southern Peninsula, and by the sword only could 
they preserve their dominion. 

In the times of the first Visigothic kings the 
whole ceremony of electing a chief consisted in 
making the successful candidate promise that he 
would behave valiantly in war, and rule with justice 
during peace. He was then raised on a buckler 
above the heads of the surrounding multitudes, who 
hailed him as their leader. Later, when the elective 
power had come to rest with the clergy as much as 



ATAULPHUS. 



9 1 



in the warlike chiefs, there was more pomp and 
circumstance attending the inauguration. Both the 
secular and spiritual chiefs were assembled for the 
purpose of nominating the candidate. He swore to 
observe the laws, to administer justice without par- 
tiality, and received oaths of fidelity and obedience 
from every one asssembled. 




CHAPTER VII. 



ARIANS. 



The Eternal Peace, of which the fond historian of 
Spain wrote, was to be broken by a Gothic in- 
vasion. The most careful students of the history 
of the Goths do not affect more than tradition 
as their authority, in supposing that they had 
come originally from Scandinavia. History really 
knows them just near the mouth of the Vistula, 
in the region now covered mainly by Prussia. 
The Vandals, who, with a different name, seem to 
be but another tribe of the same great people, 
lived west of them. In their original residence 
in Scandinavia, those Goths who lived at the east- 
ward, had been called Ostro-Goths, and those at 
the westward, Visi-Goths. But Ostro-Goths and 
Visi-Goths are the same people, speaking substan- 
tially the same language. And in the period of 
which we are speaking these names are to be taken 
simply as names, and the reader is not to puzzle 
himself by expecting to find any geographical rela- 
tion remaining. Among the Vandals, who were 
frequently their allies, and who belonged to the 
same race and shared their characteristics, were 
tribes which had the names of Lombards and Bur- 

92 



ARIANS. 93 

gundians, which have since been transferred to parts 
of Europe very far from the original seats of the 
conquerors. The Heruli were a third Vandal tribe, 
once equally distinguished, but their name has dis- 
appeared from geography. 

Pressed by some wave of eastern invasion, perhaps, 
or perhaps led by some spirited soldier's ambition, 
or perhaps directed from their own homes by an 
oracle, Goths and Vandals swept southward on the 
Roman Empire. In the third century, their attack 
pressed most heavily on the line of the Danube. 
Eventually they crossed that river, and, building 
ships for themselves on the Black Sea, attacked, with 
success the coasts of Greece and of Asia Minor. 
The history of the end of that century, and of the 
fourth century is the history of Roman wars with 
Goths and Vandals, and of the truces and treaties 
by which such wars were, for a time, arrested. In 
the middle of the fourth century, Ulfilas, as he is 
called by most modern writers, converted these 
barbarians to the Christian religion. In the lan- 
guage which he wrote, first of all men, his name 
is Wulf-i-las — " The little wolf." The piety, the 
learning, and the energy of this man, and the 
inestimable results which have followed from his 
devotion, give him a high place among the found- 
ers of modern Europe and the benefactors of man- 
kind. The Gothic language was reduced to writing 
by him. He used twenty-two of the Roman let- 
ters and invented one letter, w, and a letter for ///, 
which has since fallen out from the German alpha- 
bet. Ulfilas did this, that he might translate for the 



94 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

use of his converts the Scriptures of the New and 
Old Testaments. His translation of the New Testa- 
ment was complete. Of the old Testament, it is 
specially said, that he omitted the four books of 
Kings from fear of the effect upon the warlike pas- 
sions, so difficult at best to control, of his converts. 
All the stores of German, Dutch, and English litera- 
ture have their origin in the experiment which " The 
Little Wolf," thus tried of the capacities of the 
Gothic language. 

His converts seem to have accepted the new faith 
seriously and with determination, as has been the 
religious habit of their race from that time down. 
When Alaric, the great Gothic leader, established 
his western court at Toulouse, the dignity of its 
worship and the seriousness of its morals were such 
as to put to shame the Christian Court of Constanti- 
nople at the same time. And those who make the 
mistake of considering religion a mattter of books, 
— where the learned have better chances than the 
ignorant, — must remember that such dignity and 
seriousness were attained by a nation of new con- 
verts, who had no literature but a part of the Bible 
which a few of them had but just learned to read. 
As we shall see, the simplicity of their training had 
much to do with the ecclesiastical quarrels of the 
next century. The conversion from Pagan worship 
did not diminish the respect which the Goths were 
always accustomed to pay to their priests. When 
they were in the forests of the north, the priests 
shared with the officers of the army in the govern- 
ment of the people ; and we shall see, as we go on, 



ARIANS. 95 

that priests and bishops had no less power in the 
affairs of the converted nation. 

This Gothic nation, having rested itself by taking 
possession of Southern France, almost without op- 
position, is the power which in the fifth century 
broke in upon the dream of peace in Spain. Before 
this time the Franks had sent invading bodies across 
or around the Pyrenees. But they had made no 
permanent establishments. When the Goths and 
Vandals came to Spain they came to stay. 

The reader will observe in following the history of * 
this conquest, and of the contemporaneous move- 
ments of Gothic leaders further east, that we have 
passed the period in their history when they became 
a Christian people. Indeed, Ulfilas, the father of 
their faith, died about the year 390. After this time, 
in the great contests which follow between North 
and South, we have, for the first time, a conflict of 
two Christian nations against each other. But the 
Christianity of the North was as simple and as un- 
theological a form of religion as can be conceived. 
For its theological basis was what was called Arian- 
ism. Little wonder, indeed, that prelates and 
doctors at the South refused to call it Christianity at 
all. Suppose a South Sea Islander of to-day, who 
has just been trained to read the four Gospels in his 
own language, and from them has his only idea of 
Saviour, of God, or of heaven, were brought into a 
meeting of theologians at Rome or at Oxford, or to 
the discussions of a clerical association in the United 
States. The amazement which this poor man would 
feel, and his utter inability to understand even the 






96 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

terms of discussion, show precisely the experience of 
the intelligent Goths of the first generation of inva- 
ders, when they found themselves in presence of the 
subtleties of the church of the Mediterranean shore. 
For Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards, Christianity was 
now a matter of more than three centuries of history, 
literature, and study. It was as old as Protestantism is 
to-day. It is safe to say that its dogmas had been 
refined upon with more intricate discussion than has 
shown itself even in the discussions of Protestantism. 
It had been discussed by literary men, trained to 
rhetoric and logic. It had been discussed by philoso- 
phers, trained in Greek philosophy, in Asian extrava- 
gances, in Egyptian mysteries, and in African readi- 
ness to assent. Thus it had become a complicated 
theological system, all wrought in with the intricacies 
of a highly organized social order, through which ran 
all the electric nerves of the great imperial system, 
and in which every, fashion, every habit of speech, 
and every mental process, was allied to whatever 
was the ruling theological dogma of the time. In 
that social order, bishops and often prelates, were 
leaders. They were the advisers of monarchs, and 
sometimes even took their places in council, and in 
war. 

The Gothic leaders and the simple Gothic people 
found themselves of a sudden in presence of this com- 
plicated social order, with which they had scarcely 
one point in sympathy. That point was, their ven- 
eration for Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. 
But they did not know Jesus Christ by any of the 
epithets which had been developed by the learning 



ff^ 







TOLEDO 



9$ THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

of three centuries. They knew him only in the 
simple phrases which they had spelled out in the 
simple version of the four Gospels which their be- 
loved apostle had made for them. They knew him 
as the well-beloved Son of God. They knew him 
as him whom the Father had sent into the world. 
In this sense they knew him as Emanuel — God with 
us. They knew him as the Messiah who claimed to 
fulfil Jewish prophecy. But when bishops or other 
teachers spoke to them of a Trinity of three persons 
and one God, they used words which these Germans 
had never heard before, and of which they did not 
know the meaning. They used words which, to this 
hour, the German languages have never been able to 
translate, and which they have been obliged to in- 
corporate with their own. 

But it was on no theological subtlety such as the 
world has played over for fourteen centuries since, 
without any satisfactory solution, that the Gothic 
Arians of Spain came to battle with the Roman 
Catholics whom they found there. The real con- 
flict was that of a nation without science and with- 
out a literature, meeting another nation with science 
and with a literature. As it happened, the literature 
was orthodox in its theology ; and the science, such 
as it was, borrowed the orthodox expressions and 
belief. But the Goths, whom we are following, had 
neither literature nor science. When the conflict 
began, they were perfectly' true to the intelligible 
and simple theology which they brought with them. 
But as, man by man, they entered into the fascinat- 
ing arcana of learning and art, by which they were 



ARIANS. 99 

tempted in the older civilization of Spain, they 
followed almost, of course, in the steps of their 
teachers. Two or three generations were quite 
enough to bring the sons and grandsons of Gothic 
princes to follow very meekly the directions of the 
learned prelates of their times. Who should under- 
stand these mysteries, indeed, if not the learned men 
who studied them ? The contest was a contest be- 
tween unlearned simplicity and a cultivated and 
learned theology. So far as there was any tribunal 
to which both parties could appeal for a decision, 
such appeals must be rendered to Rome herself. 
In such a contest there w r as, from the beginning, no 
question what the end must be. 

It would be foolish, then, to make any attempt to 
decide which of the two parties in the contest which 
swept over Spain now for nearly one hundred years 
had made the nearest approach to absolute truth. 
The statement of neither party would now be ac- 
cepted as final by any theologian in the world. The 
conflict, as has been said, was not really a conflict as 
to the Divine realities. It was the conflict which 
must come where a simple people without letters is 
living in the same streets with a people who are 
using a literature, complicated and refined, which 
has stood for hundreds of years. 

Civilization will have its way. It will be for the 
reader to see, in the narrative which follows, which 
of the parties exhibited more of the true Christian 
spirit. Nothing need be added here but to say that 
the learned still find some traces of the Arianism of 
Spain left in the texts of the Spanish liturgies. Its 



IOO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

most valuable gift to Spain was probably that spirit 
of proud independence which for centuries enabled 
the Spanish Church to defy the decrees of the Ro- 
man Pontificate. It was this same independence 
which so long preserved separate rituals and admin- 
istrations in the Spanish churches. To-day, the 
northern traveller in Toledo, led by his sympathy 
for freedom in religion, goes to worship in the little 
chapel of the cathedral, where what is called the Muz- 
arabic ritual is still maintained, — though he and the 
choir-boys be the only congregation, and the priest 
who conducts the service himself seems to wonder 
why they are there. This traveller will remember 
that this anomaly in the ritual of that church, which 
would be glad to have one ritual in one language 
for every country under heaven, is the survival of 
the simple independence of those unlearned invaders 
who brought into Spain such Christianity as Ulfilas 
had taught them from the four Gospels. They 
were not trained to the Christology or the theology, 
which could be better studied in the schools of 
Toledo, of Rome, of Athens, of Antioch, and of 
Alexandria. 

Exactly as in the case of the Roman occupation, 
the principal memorial which the Goths have left in 
Spain is the impress of their language. As has been 
already said, Spanish is a language of Latin roots 
with a Teutonic grammar. Because this is so, a 
piece of good Spanish has all the aspects to the 
English reader, of a piece of bad Latin, as Latin 
is written by a school-boy in the first months of his 
training. Without disrespect to a noble language, 



ARIANS. IOI 

Spanish has been compared to the " hog-Latin " of 
an English school — such as a boy if he meant to 
write in Latin " I have spoken," would say " Ego, 
I; habeo, have; dictus, spoken" This would be as 
bad Latin as it could possibly be. Every word 
would be wrong and one might say that the arrange- 
ment would be wrong. Now all the southern and 
modern languages, which are made on Latin roots, 
make this boy's curious error of changing a passive 
perfect participle into an active one. The Roman 
language had no active perfect participle ; Gothic and 
French speakers of Latin needed one as the school- 
boy does. They took the passive participle and 
used it as if it «were active. The Frenchman says 
"j'ai parle," — and the Spaniard " yo he hablado." 
To such rough treatment of Latin, — common to all 
this group of languages, — Spanish adds peculiarities 
of its own. The indefinite article, which the German 
retains as ein, is in Spanish un, as in French, and its 
use follows old Gothic analogies. By a habit, diffi- 
cult to understand, the definite article is used in 
ways more familiar to Englishmen than to French- 
men. For instance " l'honneur " and "la Patrie " 
are forms which would not be found in Spanish. 

The reader who takes any interest in the compari- 
son of languages may like to look at the four ver- 
sions of the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount 
in Spanish, Italian, French, and English. 

" Y viendo Jesus las multitudes, subio a un monte ; 
y sentandose el, se llegaron a el sus discipulos. Y 
abriendo el su boca los ensenaba, diciendo : 

" Ed egli, vedendo le turbe, sali sopra il monte ; 



102 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

e postosi a sedere, i suoi discipoli s'accostaronoa lui. 
Ed egli, aperta la bocca, gli ammaestrava ; dicendo : " 

" Voyant la foule, Jesus monta sur la montagne ; 
et apres qu'il se fut assis, ses disciples s'approcherent 
de lui. Puis, ayant ouvert la bouche, il les enseigna, 
et dit : " 

" And seeing the multitudes, he went up unto the 
mountain ; and when he had sat down, his disciples 
came unto him ; and he opened his mouth and 
taught them, saying : " 

It happens, curiously enough, that some gradual 
changes, such as the philologists would account for 
by Grimm's Law, have even changed familiar radi- 
cals in the same way in which they have been 
changed in English, where the Norman French intro- 
duced Latin roots into a Saxon language. Even the 
philologist finds it rather hard to account for 
" mucho " in Spanish and "much " in English, — two 
words, which, on their way down from the original 
Sanscrit, have, after an eventful history, come out 
almost as much alike as twin sisters should. 

It is for this reason that English readers, who 
have any knowledge of the Latin language, find 
Spanish so easy a language to learn. For reasons 
understood by the philologists, the combination of 
Latin roots into Teutonic grammar made by the 
Franks, does not retain so many German peculiarities. 
In Italian fewer still are found. Of the three lan- 
guages, therefore, Spanish is the easiest for an 
English speaking person, who has any knowledge of 
Latin, to guess his way through. 

The relations of Spain with England and America, 



ARIANS. 103 

in modern times, have done a good deal to increase 
the resemblance between the English and Spanish 
languages. Here, we are not to trace a long descent 
from an original Sanscrit ancestry, but merely find 
cases where the word has been bodily transferred, 
for convenience, from one language to another. It 
is curious to see that England, since then the mis- 
tress of the seas, took many of the words now in 
familiar use in maritime affairs, from Spanish au- 
thorities. Thus our word " mizzen " is from the 
Spanish "mesana"; our " gaff " is the Spanish 
" garfio." In military affairs the same transfers 
took place, probably in the times of wars in the 
Low Countries. Our " canteen ' is the Spanish 
"cantina," whose root is to be found in the Latin 
"quantus," whence we get our word ''quantity." 
A traveller in Spain who arrives at an inn asks for 
" cuartos " for his party — that is for " rooms." The 
word originated in the division of a house into four 
rooms, each of which was a fourth part of the whole. 
When in England or America, a person tells you he 
is changing his quarters, he uses the same phrase, 
without knowing, perhaps, that he is talking Span- 
ish. In later times the relations both of navies and 
of armies have been somewhat changed ; and in 
Spain, as in all the rest of the world, the language 
of steam-engineering takes most of its phrases from 
the words carried by the countrymen of Watt and 
Boulton, Stephenson and Fulton. 

From point to point, as the Story of Spain goes on, 
we shall have occasion to show how the remarkable 
literature developed, by the people who have used 



104 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

this language of great power, has interested all West- 
ern Europe, and has won a commanding place in the 
literature of modern times. The romance authors 
of Spain led the way in the series of stories long so 
fashionable, which were the first books Europe had 
to read after it escaped from merely monkish litera- 
ture. One may say, in passing, that there is hardly 
one of the romances which does not show signs of 
ecclesiastical training in the author. Coming later 
down, the statesmanship and diplomacy of Spain, in 
the days of Ferdinand, of Charles V., and his imme- 
diate successors, brought the Spanish language to 
the general attention of civilized Europe. So soon 
as Cervantes and Lope de Vega wrote, their works 
were translated into every Western language, and 
there are high authorities who even insist that we 
owe " Gil Bias " to a Spanish original, though that 
original has never been found. For centuries, in- 
deed, the plots of French and English and German 
plays were borrowed from the Spanish," as certainly 
and as confidently as the plots of English plays 
have since been taken from the French, and those 
of French plays from the German. It has happened 
in some instances that the translations from language 
to language have been made by master hands. The 
" Don Quixote " of Smollett, for instance, might be 
reckoned almost as an English classic. 

To people of this generation, Spain seems set 
apart from the rest of the world, and men travel 
there as they might go to the planet Mars or to 
Japan. In Seville they find what reminds them of 
Arabian Nights. In .the rest of Spain they find 



i 



ARIANS. 



105 



traces of the Roman arts, or mingle in customs 
which carry them back to their recollections of 
Scott's novels of the Middle Ages. But, in other 
times, the relations of Spain with the rest of Eu- 
rope have been very intimate. To these relations 
we owe the origin of the modern novel — the history 
of which cannot be traced without going back to 
Spanish originals. In giving to the world " Amadis," 
" Esplandian," and the other romances, " Don 
Quixote," " Gil Bias," and the plays of Cervantes, 
Calderon, and De Vega, the Peninsula has made a 
permanent mark on the literature of Europe. For 
the reasons which have been hinted at, the student 
of English or American blood comes to the great 
originals with perfect ease and satisfaction. 




CHAPTER VIII. 



LEOVIGILD — RECARED. 



rrj 



LEOVIGILD was a great and warlike king (57*0-601), 
who was always successful in keeping enemies out of 
Spain with his army. He would not allow people in 
the kingdom who acknowledged any one else but him- 
self as their sovereign, and drove out from Granada 
and other towns the imperialists who considered 
themselves under the rule of the Roman emperor. 
He had to put down rebellions which arose in sev- 
eral parts of the country. These were manifestations 
of the Spaniards, or» descendants of the early inhab- 
itants of Spain, who had never become wholly 
blended with the Goths. Their religion was not 
the religion of the king, for he was an Arian, and 
this heresy, as it was called, had no foothold among 
the fierce inhabitants of the northern mountains, 
where the Christian religion, taught by zealous 
priests of the Roman Church, had displaced their 
earlier barbarous worship. These wild tribes were 
hard to subdue. For ten years the king was hard at 
work establishing peace throughout his dominions, 
from the Bay of Biscay to the Straits of Gibraltar. 

Leovigild was twice married. His sons, Erminigild 
and Recared, were grown up when their father gave 

106 



LEO VIGILD—RE CA RED. I OJ 

them, as step-mother, Goswinda, a princess of great 
decision of character, who was, like her husband, an 
Arian. 

The young prince and heir to the throne, Ermini- 
gild, was at the time married to Ingunda, a princess 
who came from France, although she was descended 
on her mother's side from Gothic king's. 

Athanagild, king of the Visigoths, had two daugh- 
ters, both of whom he gave in marriage to French 
princes, hoping thus to buy the friendship of the 
Franks. An early historian describes the grief with 
which the queen-mother parted with her daughter 
whom she sent to seek an unknown lord in the North. 
The description shows how much the Goths had ad- 
vanced in civilization, by their life in Spain, since 
the mother regarded the journey of her daughter as 
a return to barbarism. The sequel showed that she 
was not far wrong. 

" When the ambassadors of the Franks, at Toledo, 
presented themselves to salute the future bride of 
their king, they found her sobbing in the arms of her 
mother. Rough as they were, they were touched, 
and dared not mention the journey for two days, 
but on the third, they ventured to approach the 
queen and point out to her that they must hasten 
their departure, on account of the impatience of 
Chilperic, their master, and of the length of the 
journey. The queen with tears besought them for 
one more day. ' But one day more,' she said, ' and 
I will ask nothing further, — yet know you not that 
where you are carrying my daughter there will be no 
mother for her ! ' After every possible excuse for 



108 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

delay, Athanagild imposed his authority as king 
aad father, and in spite of her mother's tears, the 
princess was consigned to the charge of those who 
were to conduct her to her future spouse. 

" A long train of cavaliers, chariots, and baggage, 
filed through the narrow streets of Toledo towards 
the northern gate. The king followed the escort of 
his daughter as far as the bridge over the Tagus, at 
some distance from the city, but the queen could 
not make up her mind then to turn back, and chose 
to go on further. She left her own carriage and sat 
in that of the princess close to her daughter, and 
thus went on day after day for a distance of more 
than a hundred miles. Every day she said, ' I will 
just go on to the next stopping-place ' ; and when 
they reached that, she still went on. As they ap- 
proached the mountains, travelling grew difficult, 
and as the queen's own people and baggage greatly 
increased and complicated the dangers of the jour- 
ney, the Gothic lords made up their minds not to 
let the queen go a step further. They convinced 
her that she must resign herself to a separation which 
was inevitable, and the tender scenes of parting were 
renewed. 

" ' May you be happy my daughter,' she said, ' but 
I have grave fears for you ; be on your guard, always 
on your guard.' The princess wept bitterly at these 
words, for she felt some presentiment of evil. 

" ' God wills, I must submit,' " she sadly said. 

" Then a division was made of the cavaliers and 
carriages, some going forward with the princess, 
while the rest turned back towards Toledo. Before 




THE WINDING PASS. 
IOg 



IIO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

mounting the chariot which was to take her home, 
the Queen of the Goths paused by the way-side, 
and fixed her eyes upon the departing conveyance 
of her daughter, which she followed until it van- 
ished at a turn in the winding pass. 

" The princess pursued her destination in the North. 
With her escort, composed of lords and warriors of 
both nations, Goths and Franks, she crossed the 
Pyrenees, passed through Narbonne and Carcassonne, 
which still belonged to her father's kingdom, then, 
by way of Poitiers and Tours, she came to Rouen 
where the marriage was to be celebrated. At the 
gates of every large town the cortege stopped in 
order to make a grand entrance. The knights laid 
aside their travelling mantles and appeared in all the 
splendor of rich dresses ; the princess exchanged her 
heavy travelling carriage for a triumphal car in the 
form of a tower all covered with plates of silver. 

"The wedding was t celebrated with great magnifi- 
cence. The Frank warriors took oaths of fidelity 
to the foreign princess, and waved their swords in 
the air pronouncing an old Pagan formula which 
condemned to the sword him who violated this oath. 
Then the king solemnly renewed his vows of con- 
stancy and conjugal faith, and swore, with his hand 
upon a casket containing sacred relics, never to repu- 
diate the daughter of the king of the Goths, his law- 
ful and only wife." 

This promise was kept for a while. In less than 
six months, the Gothic princess was strangled in her 
sleep by the orders of the king, to gratify a rival in his 
affections. 



LEO VIGILD—RE CA RED. I I I 

There were two Gothic princesses who were thus 
sent to France. This was the fate of one, the other 
was the famous Brunhilda, whose career and whose 
crimes have been the subject of many a romance. 
She lived to a wicked old age, and was finally killed 
by her enemies who accused her of the death of no 
less than ten kings. 

The daughter of Brunhilda, born in France, came 
to Spain to marry a Gothic prince, Erminigild, the 
son of Leovigild. She was warmly received at the 
Gothic court. Her husband, the heir to the throne, 
was already associated with his father in the royal 
dignities, and treated with the greatest liberality and 
affection. 

Unfortunately the princess Ingunda had been 
brought up in the Catholic faith, while Goswinda, her 
step-mother, was a violent Arian. The two princesses 
early declared war against each other. The queen 
was no longer young, her temper was violent, she 
brooked no opposition. The French princess was 
but sixteen when she arrived at court, very beautiful, 
with the vivacious spirit and love of power of her 
mother. Such causes were enough to breed jealousy 
and quarrelling ; differences of religious faith were 
made the grounds for dispute and bitterness, leading 
to violence which the principles and precepts of 
neither creed were able to restrain. 

Goswinda was determined that her step-daughter 
should embrace the religion of the Goths ; Ingunda 
was equally resolved that no force at battle should 
induce her to do so. 

Goswinda was of a violent disposition, it is said, 



112 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

and, when resisted, resembled a fury rather than a 
woman. She so far forgot all sense of dignity, not 
merely, but of decency, as to punish the obstinacy 
of Ingunda with blows. She seized her one day, 
says Saint Gregory of Tours, by the hair of her 
head, threw her down and trampled on her, and 
afterwards forcibly thrust her into the water to be 
baptized by an Arian priest. Such treatment was 
not to be borne. Ingunda flew to her husband, and 
poured out her injuries in a torrent of French in- 
vectives. The prince went, of course, to his father, 
but Leovigild had no influence with his angry and 
offended wife, who hated her step-daughter the 
more, the worse she treated her. The repose of 
the court was broken up by such scandals, divided 
into two parties, which espoused the two causes of 
the rival princesses, and, after the manner of good 
society, reported, surmised, and discussed each scan- 
dal as it took place, and invented others which did 
not occur. 

The two husbands, whose mutual affection was in 
nowise disturbed by the want of harmony between 
their wives, agreed that such a life was intolerable, 
and decided to separate. The elder established his 
court at Toledo, while the younger, with his fair 
young princess, lived at Seville, in a splendor little 
inferior to that of Leovigild and Goswinda. 

Erminigild had not long been installed in his new 
palace when he abjured Arianism and embraced the 
Catholic religion. This was a great triumph for his 
wife, Ingunda, to whose influence it was chiefly due, 
as she had by this time acquired great power over 



LEO VIGILD—RECARED. 



"3 



her husband. She was aided by the arguments of a 
bishop they happened to have in the family, St. Le- 




PUERTA DEL SOL. TOLEDO. 



ander, the brother of Theodosia, the first wife of 
Leovigild. This lady is celebrated as the sister of 
three saints — all uncles of Erminigild, and one of 



114 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

them bishop of Seville. Under these circumstances, 
it was natural enough that the prince should abjure a 
faith made so unamiable in the person of his violent 
stepmother, for another made attractive by the charms 
of his fair young wife, and recommended by all his 
own mother's relations. The change was most un- 
welcome at the court at Toledo. Leovigild, though 
of a soul naturally noble, was violent when roused, 
like his queen. That the heir to his throne should 
abandon the ancient faith of his fathers, filled him 
with indignation. In the first moments of anger, he 
declared that the crown of the Goths should never 
adorn the brow of an apostate. Goswinda encour- 
aged this temper in her lord and master, and fos- 
tered it with all the bitter arguments she could 
think of. 

Leovigild, however, could not long maintain in 
his heart hard feelings against a son he so deeply 
loved. He sent to him requesting an interview, in 
the hope that he might change the resolve of the 
young man ; perhaps if they could have met, they 
would have agreed to differ without quarrelling, but 
the prince refused to meet his father. Probably his 
advisers thought it dangerous for their new convert 
to be exposed to the arguments and entreaties of an 
affectionate parent. For the Catholic bishops it was 
a great gain to have a prince and heir to the throne 
converted to orthodoxy. They were even eager to 
take up arms and dethrone the Arian monarch, in 
order to place his orthodox son in his stead. 

Erminigild opened intercourse with his father's 
enemies, and took advantage of his own conversion 



LEO VIGILD—RE CA RED. 1 1 $ 

to win for his cause such subjects of Leovigild as 
professed the orthodox belief. Among them was 
Mir, the king of the Sueves, in Galicia, where a num- 
ber of these people still remained, after all the at- 
tempts of the Gothic kings to turn them out of the 
Peninsula. Mir marched to his assistance, but be- 
fore he reached Seville, he was surrounded by the 
royal troops, and compelled to swear that he would 
aid his liege-lord. For Erminigild, the undutiful 
son and audacious rebel, had to deal with an able 
opponent in the king, his father, who had already 
proved his skill as a leader of armies. He besieged 
Erminigild in Seville. The city was closely invested 
by a powerful army ; yet the prince was so well sup- 
ported that the place held out for a year. At the 
end of this time, their provisions were giving out, 
their patience exhausted. The prince succeeded in 
effecting his escape before Seville capitulated. He 
fled to Cordova, but that city was compelled to 
surrender by the troops of Leovigild, and after 
several attempts to defend himself, his troops cut to 
pieces, his fortifications destroyed by fire, he betook 
himself to sanctuary in a church whence he implored 
pardon. 

The king, justly incensed with the undutiful con- 
duct of his son, which in his eyes could not be ex- 
cused under the plea of religious fervor, since the 
father regarded the new professions of his son as ex- 
treme errors, nevertheless promised to spare his life 
if he would leave the sanctuary. Prince Recared, 
another son of Leovigild, entered the church and 
persuaded his brother to come forth. Erminigild 



Il6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

appeared and threw himself at the feet of his parent, 
with every sign of grief and repentance. The king 
raised him with much emotion, kissed him, and wept 
bitterly. His anger was forgotten, and he felt all 
his affection returning for his favorite son. But the 
rebel must be punished ; he was despoiled of his 
ornaments, the signs of royalty, and exiled to Valen- 
cia, there to live as a private man. 

Erminigild withdrew to Valencia, but it was not 
likely that he would rest there quietly, nor that Ingun- 
da, the ambitious French princess, would allow herself 
to be thus extinguished, while her rival, Goswinda, 
triumphed at Toledo. It was not long before Er- 
minigild had collected an army combined from those 
of. the enemies of his father, and invaded his ter- 
ritory. 

The old writer who describes these things, being 
orthodox, regards the cause of Erminigild as a holy 
one, undertaken for the true faith, and he relates a 
miracle which took place in the contest between the 
rebel forces of Erminigild and the veteran troops of 
his father, Leovigild, the Arian. He says that Leovi- 
gild's soldiers everywhere plundered and burned the 
churches and monasteries of the orthodox, and mas- 
sacred the inmates without compunction. On one 
occasion his army advanced upon a monastery in such 
force that the monks all fled in terror, leaving their 
aged abbot alone and unprotected. The old man, in 
all the splendor of his priestly robes, stood in the 
gate-way, armed only with his cross. A soldier raised 
his sword agaiast the holy man, but was instantly 
Struck dead, seeing which his comrades fled with 



LEO VIGILD—RECARED. I T J 

haste. When the king heard of it, he acknowledged 
the interference of Heaven for that monastery, and 
forbade it to be plundered. 

The cause of the rebel son was hopeless, in spite of 
the support it received from the orthodox party in 
Spain, for this was not strong enough to resist the 
force of well-trained arms, and the power of existing 
institutions. Ingunda herself saw this, and urged her 
husband to escape into France, where they might 
persuade her brother to arm in their cause. Ermini- 
gild decided to try this, too late ; he was seized 
by emissaries of his father, and thrown into prison in 
Tarragona. 

Leovigild seems to have shown great patience 
with his son, for in spite of all he had done he was 
not executed, as might have been expected from the 
customs of irritated fathers in those times. Leovi- 
gild was convinced that the difficulty was caused by 
the connection of his- son with the Catholics. He 
hoped, and almost felt sure, that if Erminigild could 
be separated from their influence, he would return to 
his old allegiance and affection for his father. The 
old man underrated the influence of Ingunda on her 
husband, although he must have known in his own 
case the force of conjugal counsels. 

He despatched confidential messengers to the 
prince in prison, promising not only pardon, but a 
full restoration to royal favor, if he would return to 
the Arian faith. Erminigild remained firm, but his 
father continued to work upon him, hoping at last to 
win him back to the creed of his childhood. The 
prince resisted promises and threats, and after every 



Il8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

interview declared his unalterable resolve to live and 
die in the Catholic communion. 

Leovigild's persistence was due in the first place to 
his own strong conviction that the Arian creed was 
the only true faith, in which view he was supported 
. by the determined convictions of his wife, who would 
not have allowed him to think otherwise, and also by 
his wish to separate his son from the opposite party, 
and thus ensure his allegiance for the rest of his life, 
since the strong body of Catholic Christians were the 
most powerful opponents there were in the country, 
to the reign of an Arian king. 

One night the king sent an Arian bishop to the 
dungeon where Erminigild lay, to tell him that 
he need not even admit really the Arian faith, but 
that if he would but receive the communion from the 
Arian prelate, so that it could be publicly announced 
that he had, nothing more should be required 
of him, and his iu\[ pardon should be immediately 
signed. The .king doubtless thought it would be 
enough to spread the report that the prince had out- 
wardly conformed to Arianism, in order to break the 
bond between him and the rebels of the Catholic 
faith. 

The bishop entered the cell, and went over all the 
ground of persuasion, which the prince had heard so 
often that his mind was weary of giving attention to 
arguments which did not affect him in the least. His 

o 

mind was made up. Whether conscience forbade him 
to receive outwardly a sign which he did not in- 
wardly accept, whether the memory of Ingunda, or 
the ancient wrongs inflicted on him by his step- 



LEO VLGLLD—RECARED. 1 1 9 

mother, prevailed, he grew more and more restless 
and irritated by the conversation of the bishop, and 
at last, starting up and longing to get rid of him, he 
exclaimed : " As the minister of the Devil, thou canst 
guide only to hell. Begone, wretch ! to the pun- 
ishments prepared for thee ! " 

This was not a very pleasant answer for the bishop 
to receive, and he retired in great wrath. It was 
not a politic one for Erminigild, for when the king 
heard of it from the lips of the insulted and angry 
prelate, he broke out into a fit of ungovernable fury, 
and gave orders for the execution of his son. They 
were promptly obeyed. His head was cut off with- 
out delay, and thus ended the life of this prince of 
the Goths. It is said that Leovigild bitterly re- 
gretted the deed, decreed in a hasty moment, after 
long years of patient hope for a reconciliation with 
his son. Yet there is no doubt that the prince 
deserved the death of a traitor for his rebellion 
against the crown. 

Erminigild was regarded by the orthodox as a 
martyr, and was canonized as a saint. Ancient 
chronicles record that the dungeon, on the night 
of his execution, was illuminated with celestial light, 
that angels hovered over the corpse, and celebrated 
his martyrdom with holy songs. 

After they received the news of Erminigild's death, 
the relations of his widow, the Princess Ingunda, 
armed in the cause of their sister, and marched into 
Gothic Gaul, but Leovigild sent his remaining son, 
Recared, to oppose them, and he expelled the in- 
vaders. 



126 THE STORY OF SPAIN: 

Leovigild was now a great prince, the undisputed 
master of the Peninsula. He assumed more splen- 
dor than his predecessors, wore the crown in public, 
erected a magnificent throne in his palace at Toledo, 
and displayed everywhere his wealth and power. He 
is the first of the Visigoth kings represented on 
ancient coins with the royal diadem on his brow. 
He built cities and introduced improvements into 
the national legislation. He put an end to the 
domination of the Sueves, who had for nearly two 
hundred centuries troubled the country. 

He stained the lustre of his reign by a relentless 
persecution of the orthodox or Catholic party. He 
bribed, or terrified the prelates into apostasy, or if 
they withstood him, he punished them with exile, 
imprisonment, or death. Goswinda, his Arian wife, 
was now at the summit of her power. Her rival was 
driven from the court, her religion was in the ascend- 
ant, her royal consordt firmly seated upon his throne, 
the splendors of which were furnished by treasures 
stolen from the orthodox churches and monasteries, 
which he plundered without hesitation, on the plea 
of true religion. But her triumphs and his glory did 
not last long. But a few years after the execution 
of his rebellious son, Leovigild died, A.D. 587. He 
had already associated his other son with the royal 
dignity, and on the death of his father, Recared 
Was unanimously acknowledged sole king of the 
Goths. 

Strangely enough, the subject which had shaken 
the whole kingdom in the time of Erminigild, creating 
dissension and civil war, and bringing death to this 



LEOVIGILD—RECARED. 121 

turbulent prince, was now, by his brother, quietly 
disposed of, and the very change accomplished which 
the former wished to see. 

Before the death of his father, Recared had been 
converted from Arianism to orthodoxy, but, more 
prudent and less impetuous than his brother, he 
concealed his new sentiments ; above all, we may 
suppose, from his step-mother, Goswinda. 

As determined in the new faith as his father had 
been in the old, Recared conceived the plan of re- 
claiming his subjects from heresy, which he now con- 
sidered the faith of the Arians to be. He well knew 
what difficulties he would encounter, and had seen 
by experience how unwise the course of his brother 
had been, in attempting by arms and violence to 
gain his cause, the same, in pretence at least, as his 
own. He knew that the Goths were too fierce a 
race to be compelled to any measure, especially to 
one against which their inveterate prejudices were 
allied. Time and patience, with the greatest pru- 
dence, were necessary for the success of his project. 

He had the happy inspiration to invite the Cath- 
olic and Arian prelates to dispute in his presence, and, 
by assuming the appearance of perfect impartiality 
between them, he laid the foundations for a change. 
He professed himself an enemy to all persecution for 
conscience sake, and exhorted the two parties to 
peace and harmony, and, by his own moderation, 
he disposed the minds of both parties to calmness 
and reflection. Meanwhile, he despatched mes- 
sengers, who were in his confidence, to teach the 
same lessons in the same moderate manner through- 
out the provinces. 



122 THE SiTORY OF SPAIN. 

His next step was a bolder one. He restored to 
the Catholic churches the treasures of which they 
had been deprived by his predecessors, and espe- 
cially by his own father. The influence of his per- 
sonal character was so great, that this was accom- 
plished quietly, and without exciting the displeasure 
of his Arian subjects, while, of course, the Catholic 
ones were well pleased. He was deservedly popu- 
lar ; for he was liberal to the poor, generous to all, 
kind and gentle in his manners, but inexorably just 
when occasion demanded. 

When Recared saw his preparations sufficiently 
advanced, he assembled all his nobles and clergy at 
Toledo. This was on the 8th of May, 589. 

He first prevailed on the assembly to pass three 
consecutive days in fasting and prayer, and not un- 
til these were over did the consultation begin. 

He opened the business in a well-considered speech. 
He represented religion as a concern of 'the highest 
moment to man — not only as it involved the happi- 
ness or misery of an eternal state, but as affecting 
human welfare in the present life, since no society 
could long remain organized without its sanction. 
He next adverted to the two religions, Catholic and 
Arian, in a mild tone, but at the same time with 
great resolution. He appealed to the miracles al- 
leged to have been wrought in behalf of the Catho- 
lic faith to prove its divine origin, expressing his 
firm belief in their reality. 

His address was clear, eloquent, and long. He 
concluded by saying that, as after mature delibera- 
tion he himself was convinced of the truth of the 
Catholic faith, he had already determined to make 



LEO VI GILD— REARED. 1 23 

public profession of it, though he disclaimed all in- 
tention of forcing the conscience of any other man. 
He submitted, however, to the assembly the con- 
sideration, that, if unity of religion could be re- 
stored to the kingdom, an end would be put to the 
troubles which had so long agitated it, to the destruc- 
tion of national prosperity and individual happiness. 

Lastly, he caused an instrument to be read, con- 
taining his abjuration of Arianism, and the confes- 
sion of his belief in the co-equality of the Three 
Persons, and in the authority of the Catholic and 
Apostolic Church, and entreated all who were pres- 
ent to follow his example. 

This discourse of Recared was received not merely 
with applause, but when he and his queen, who fully 
shared his convictions, had solemnly signed the act 
of confession, most of the prelates and nobles in the 
assembly hastened to do the same. Probably their 
minds had been prepared beforehand for the scene, so 
that the abjuration of the king did not burst upon them 
with the shock of surprise. So much may be effected 
by judicious management, rather than violence. 

The Catholic faith was thus quietly declared the 
religion of the state. Spaniard, Sueve, and Goth 
were now joined in one communion, and a canon 
was drawn up at the suggestion of Leander, with 
the full concurrence of the several members pres- 
ent, that thenceforth no person should be admitted 
to the Lord's Supper who should not previously re- 
cite the symbol of belief as sanctioned by the Coun- 
cil of Constantinople. 

Leander was the uncle of Recared, under whose in- 
fluence the unfortunate Prince Erminigild had taken 



124 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

up arms for the Catholic Church. His second nephew 
possessed a balance and judgment, lacking in his 
brother, which made the same counsels turn to good 
for the cause they both espoused, rather than evil. 
Leander was canonized, and is one of the present 
saints of the Spanish Church. 

Goswinda, the queen dowager, did not receive 
calmly the news of so great a change in the reli- 
gion of the state. We may be sure she was not in- 
vited to the assembly at Toledo, and that as soon as 
she heard of it, she endeavored to arouse the Arian 
prelates to resistance. 

These denounced the action of the assembly as 
apostasy, and in public and private inveighed against 
it. There were plots against the life of Recared in 
which Goswinda was deeply implicated, but these 
conspiracies were discovered, and punished, but not 
with rigor. The old queen, powerful no longer, was 
left to Heaven and her own conscience. 

Recared succeeded in suppressing the French who 
again attacked his possessions in Southern Gaul. 
Carcassonne, the stronghold of the Goths, fell into 
the hands of the enemy, but they could not retain it, 
and near the same city they were utterly routed. He 
controlled the antagonistic elements within the king- 
dom. The rest of his reign was a continual effort to 
promote the happiness of his people ; his administra- 
tion was prosperous, and he enjoyed their confidence 
and affection. 

It has been said of this king that in all his wars he 
was victorious, all rebellions he crushed, all conspira- 
cies he discovered. 

Recared died in 601. 



CHAPTER IX. 



TOLEDO — WAMBA. 



TOLEDO was the capital of the Visigothic kings, a 
city old even in time of Leovigild, who removed the 
court there from Seville. According to tradition it 
was founded by Jews, six centuries before Christ, 
and named by them Toledoth, " the mother of peo- 
ple." Before it became the capital, it was chosen by 
the Spanish Church for the seat of its councils, the 
first of which was held there in 400 A.D. 

It is on the top of a high hill, with almost perpen- 
dicular slopes descending to the river Tagus, which 
surrounds it on three sides. It is now approached 
by two bridges, on opposite sides of the town ; near 
one of them, the bridge of San Martin, is supposed 
to have been the palace of the Gothic kings, close to 
the river and overhanging it. The cathedral, one of 
the finest in Spain, stands on the site of a very early 
building, of whose foundation nothing is known. Its 
stone of consecration is still preserved in the cloister 
of the present cathedral ; it reads that the church 
Santa Maria was consecrated under King Recared, 
the Catholic, in the year 587 A.D., and that several 
councils took 'place within its walls. Tradition says 
it was founded by the Apostle Saint James, who is 

125 



126 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

/ firmly believed by the Spaniards to have visited 
their country in person. It was dedicated to the 
Virgin Mary, and legend says that she descended 
from heaven to visit her church, and to present its 
bishop, Ildefonso, with a splendid chasuble or cloak. 
The mark of her footprint upon the stair is still 
shown in a chapel of the cathedral, and Murillo, the 
great Spanish painter, made the legend the subject 
of one of his beautiful pictures. 

In this lofty city, protected by its position from 
the sudden attacks of enemies, the Goths reigned for 
several centuries. The city became very prosperous 
and important, and its wealth enormous. There 
were always many Jews living there, perhaps ever 
since the founding of the city, a people who have al- 
ways brought commercial success to the places where 
they live, but also often dissension, for the intoler- 
ance of Christian sovereigns has led them to perse- 
cute the Jews. Intthe sixth Council of Toledo, a 
canon decreed that all future kings were to swear 
that they would rigorously enforce the laws against 
" that accursed people." 

In the second half of the seventh century, when the 
Gothic kingdom in Spain was thus prosperous, the 
Catholic religion firmly established, her enemies sub- 
dued, the alien tribes merged with the older inhabi- 
tants, it became necessary to choose a king, and the 
electors searched about to find one wise and good 
enough for the office. They chose a man of princely 
descent, who had filled some honorable posts at court, 
but, tired of its splendors, he had retired from pub- 
lic life and was living far off from the capital. The 



TO LED 0— WA MBA . 1 2 7 

legend goes that Leo, a holy man, afterwards Pope, 
at the earnest request of the electors, prayed that 
they might be divinely directed in their choice. He 
was admonished in answer to his prayers, that the 
man to be sought, who must wear the crown, was a 
laborer living in the west, and his name was Wamba. 
Soldiers were despatched in search of him.^ They 
travelled towards the west inquiring for him, and at 
last, when they were nearly out of their own country, 
on the borders of Portugal, they came to the place 
where they had been told he was living. They were 
sent out into the fields, and there, to their surprise no 
doubt, they found the future candidate to the throne 
of Spain following the plough and turning up his 
own furrows. Nevertheless, as the servants of the 
Gothic electors knew they must obey orders, however 
singular they were, the messengers bowed before the 
ploughman, and informed him that he had been se- 
lected as king of Spain. 

Wamba laughed, and taking the information as an 
elaborate joke, replied lightly : 

" Yes, and I shall be king about the time that my 
pole puts out leaves." As he spoke he struck the 
pole into the ground, and suddenly, as they all stood 
looking at it, it began to bud, and in a few minutes 
was covered with verdure. After this there was 
nothing to be said, and Wamba, yielding to the 
power of the miracle, suffered himself to be carried 
to Toledo and crowned. 

So much for the legend. ' According to historians, 
Wamba was visited by the dukes of the land who 
informed him of the honors intended for him. He 



128 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

urged his advanced age, which made him loath to 
undertake duties requiring such labor and activity. 
Prayers and tears were vainly employed to move 
him. At length one of the dukes of the palace 
placed a poniard at his breast, probably a Toledo 
blade, and bade him choose between the sepulchre 
and a throne. Such a choice was no longer difficult, 
and Wamba yielded his assent. He begged, how- 
ever, for delay, thinking that perhaps the electors 
would change in favor of some other candidate, but 
they were consistent, and he was crowned in nineteen 
days after his forcible proclamation. 

Though Wamba was so attached to a private life 
and so unwilling to leave it to become king, he w T as 
fully equal to the difficulties of his new situation, 
although they became many, partly in consequence 
of his own course. He issued a decree banishing all 
Jews who refused to be baptized ; this was not worthy 
of his reputation for wisdom, for the exiles all flocked 
to Nismes, in Gothic Gaul, where there was already 
a rebellion against the throne, headed by Hilderic 
the Count of Nismes. The Duke Paul, a Greek, de- 
spatched by Wamba to reduce the rebellion, joined 
it himself, took lead of the malcontents, and even 
prevailed on the Goths in Gaul to proclaim him 
king. 

Wamba was armed and in camp when he received 
this intelligence, accompanied by a whimsical letter 
written by the Duke Paul in a boasting vein, as if his 
success had already turned his head. Wamba had 
found himself, at his accession, in control of an admira- 
ble army. He marched across the Pyrenees, subduing 



TOLEDO— WAMBA. 1 29 

on the way all the places which had risen against him, 
and came to Narbonne, the old stronghold of the 
Goths, where Ataulphus kept his honeymoon with 
the Roman princess Placidia. Paul had fled to 
Nismes, leaving Narbonne in the hands of an able 
general, who, with the citizens, made a vigorous re- 
resistance, but the city was forced to yield, and the 
royal army marched against Nismes,* where Paul was 
entrenched with his bravest troops. The assault was 
made with great fury and as furiously repelled. 
During a whole day the Goths made no impres- 
sion on the place, and when the darkness of night 
stopped the desperate struggle, they were still 
further depressed by the report that a considerable 
body of German and French auxiliaries were ad- 
vancing to the aid of the rebels. This report was 
a fabrication of the artful Paul ; but for a time it 
answered his purpose. He was soon, however, con- 
founded in his turn by the arrival of ten thousand 
fresh troops, despatched by Wamba, who was him- 
self now approaching the scene of strife. At the 
dawn of the following morning Paul beheld, from 
the top of a tower, the increased force of the enemy 
drawn up for a new and more vigorous assault. But 
Paul was no coward ; he resolved to withstand the 
coming onset as befitted one who had staked every 
thing for a throne. Knowing that something must 
be done to relieve the sudden despondency of his 
followers, he hastily assembled them, and harangued 
them with characteristic volubility. He said : " Old 
Wamba has triumphed hitherto, but only because he 
has found little or no resistance. He finds now that 



I30 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

he has to do with hard walls and with hearts still 
harder than walls, and he accordingly begins to dis- 
play his natural cowardice. He has brought up all 
his force to resist us ; destroy that handful of men 
in the plain below, and you may march unopposed 
from the Rhine to the Bsetis." 

His discourse somewhat relieved his troops, though 
he could not prevail on them to sally forth and fight 
on the plain. The contest was for some time vigor- 
ously maintained from the fortifications ; but the 
arrows and other missiles of the assailants were so 
destructive that the ranks of the besieged were fear- 
fully thinned. 

" These Goths are no cowards, Paul ! " they ex- 
claimed, as they cast reproachful looks on the leader 
who had sacrificed them to his selfish ambition. 

The combat had continued for five hours without 
intermission, when Wamba's general cried : 

"Come, soldiers ! § bring fire and scaling-ladders! 
The sun is high, and sbimeful it will be for us if we 
do not enter the fortress to-day ! " 

Instantly the gates were burned, the walls sur- 
mounted. The struggle on the summit was terrible, 
but short. It was renewed in the streets, where the 
sword of the Goth still pursued its victims. Such of 
the defenders as could escape fled to the amphithea- 
tre, an immense Roman building like the Coliseum 
at Rome, built long before for the exhibition of ath- 
letic games. Its ruins are still standing in the. fine 
old city of Nismes. 

But here the rebels fell in with some of the inhabi- 
tants of the city, incensed with them for bringing 



TOLEDO— WA MBA . 1 3 1 

them into misfortune, who, also with the idea of 
winning the favor of Wamba, now they knew he was 
hard by, pursued and massacred the flying crowd. 
Paul himself every moment expected death, but he 
was intentionally spared by the indignant populace, 
while they wreaked their vengeance on his relatives. 
One of these was pierced before his eyes, another at 
his side, as he, left unharmed, stood on the steps of 
the amphitheatre. 

As the day began to close, Paul threw off his royal 
apparel, and with a few of his companions sought 
refuge in the vaults of the huge building. There he 
passed a night more bitter than death. 

The next morning the inhabitants, resolving to 
throw themselves on the clemency of their victor, 
sent their bishop to meet him. The prelate, in his 
splendid pontifical robes, found the monarch about 
four miles from the city, and by a touching address 
obtained a promise that no more blood should be 
spilt. Wamba now entered triumphant into Nismes, 
and was received by the pardoned inhabitants with 
unfeigned gratitude. 

Paul, with the other leading rebels, was dragged 
by the hair of the head from the vaults of the amphi- 
theatre and consigned to a prison to await the doom 
that was to be awarded him. The conqueror caused 
the dead to be buried, gave liberty to many captives, 
and endeavored to repair the evils which the city 
had sustained, and then he ordered his crestfallen 
rival to be brought before the tribunal. 

The behavior of the duke was now as humble as it 
had been bold. When he was asked by his sovereign 



I3 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

what reason he had to rebel, and whether he had 
ever received just cause of offence, he admitted that 
he had received only benefits from the hands of the 
king, and that it was his ambition alone which had 
impelled him to ingratitude and treason. He pros- 
trated himself at the feet of the victor, and begged 
that his life might be spared. 

" Thy life," replied King Wamba, "and the lives 
of thy companions have I promised to spare, though 
such indulgence is little deserved." 

The judges of the tribunal, hastily assembled for 
the occasion, voted for the death of the most guilty, 
but the merciful monarch satisfied himself with con- 
demning them to have their crowns shaved and to 
submit to a religious confinement within the walls of 
Toledo. 

Gothic Gaul was now pacified. Wamba deposed 
the governors of some places, and put others more 
trustworthy iri their stead. He banished all the 
Jews, as the moving cause of contention, and then 
went home to his capital. 

The return of the king was met with great rejoic- 
ing, and his entry into the capital triumphant. Be- 
fore him marched the rebels, their heads and chins 
shaved, their feet bare, and their bodies clothed in 
camel's hair. Paul was conspicuous among the rest 
by the crown made of leather which adorned his 
brow, as an emblem of his futile pretence at sover- 
eignty. The jeers of the populace and confinement 
for life were, for that time, a mild punishment for the 
treason he had committed against his sovereign. 

After these glorious exploits, Wamba applied him- 



TOLEDO— WAMBA . 1 3 3 

self to the interest of his subjects, and cultivated the 
arts of peace. He strengthened the walls of Toledo, 
improved the temporal condition of his people, and 
stimulated the efforts of the clergy in making them 
good Christians. He persecuted the Jews who re- 
mained with vigor, forcing them to assume the name 
of Christians and conform to their habits, which 
seems now unwise and tyrannical. 

But the customs of the Jews, as well as their denial 
of Christ, were detestable and loathesome to the 
Christians, and all their thrift and wealth, which was 
generally regarded as ill-gotten, could not recom- 
mend them to their neighbors who professed a dif- 
ferent faith. So although they built splendid palaces 
and lived in them, and possessed jewels and precious 
stones they dared not wear in public, they could asso- 
ciate only with each other, in their own quarter of 
the city, closely watched by royal authority, and per- 
forming the rites of their religion by stealth. From 
time to time, such oppression resulted in rebellion, 
then banishment, then matters settled down again, 
to repeat once more and again the same course. 
The advantages they found in Spain for their 
commerce, then very lucrative, induced many Jews 
to keep on living there, in spite of the severity with 
which they* were treated. Naturally they detested a 
government with which they were in no sympathy 
whatever, and were always ready for rebellion. 

Wamba's zeal, judgment, and vigilance foresaw the 
danger of invasion which already threatened his coun- 
try from the Saracens, as they were called, followers 
of Mohammed, who lived not far off on the shores of 



134 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Africa, masters of all that region from the Nile to 
the Atlantic ocean. The fleet by which Wamba de- 
fended the coast long kept these Mussulmans in awe, 
and had his successors shown equal prudence and 
activity, they might have saved Spain from the Sara- 
cenic invasion. 

In the midst of his wise and active career, a strange 
thing befell King Wamba, which put a premature 
end to his reign, though not to his life. 

On the 14th of October, 680, the king fell into a 
state of insensibility, and seemed to be deprived of 
life. All the servants and members of the court who 
surrounded him were convinced that he was dying, 
and as there seemed to be no doubt about it, in con- 
formity with the custom of the time, his head was 
shaved, and he was transformed from a layman into 
a member of the monastic profession. 

This custom came about from the practice of pious 
persons who, when they found themselves in danger 
of death, used to assume the tonsure and the peni- 
tential garb, engaging to continue them through the 
rest of their lives, if God spared them. This penance 
became so common, that those who did not use it 
were regarded as wanting in piety, and so, if the sick 
man were unable to ask himself for the monk's habit, 
his relations or friends made bold to invest him with 
it ; and in case he recovered, his obligation to a peni- 
tential life was just as great as if it had been im- 
posed at his own request, since as he was charitably 
assumed to be pious, he must wish to become a 
penitent. 

This custom had already given rise to such abuses, 



TO LED 0— WA MBA . 135 

that a late king of the Goths had decreed that such 
obligation imposed by others should be void unless 
the penitent shall ratify it when returned to a sound 
state of mind ; but in spite of this innovation, in the 
time of King Wamba the practice was in full force. 

The king recovered his full health and sense in 
about twenty-four hours, but his doom was sealed. 
Though his profession of penitence had been entirely 
involuntary, his head was shaven, he wore the garb of 
a monk, he was no longer of the world, and must re- 
tire from public life. 

Thus strangely disqualified from pursuing his ac- 
customed life, and fulfilling all the schemes he had 
on hand for the benefit of his kingdom, Wamba sub- 
mitted, without resistance, to the force of circum- 
stance, and passed the remainder of his days in a 
monastery near Burgos. 

No one tells us whether he made a good monk, 
whether he cheerfully returned to the plough whence 
he was taken to become king, whether he murmured 
against the will of Heaven, as he regarded it, or was 
glad to be relieved from the cares of state. 

People wondered, then and afterwards, whether 
Wamba's brief, but serious, attack of indisposition 
were a natural or contrived event. Two chroniclers 
of the ninth century assert that the trance of the 
king, and his consequent tonsure, were the work of 
Ervigius, a royal prince who had long aspired to the 
throne. According to their view, he administered a 
draught to the monarch which he intended to be 
powerful enough to destroy reason, if not life itself. 
The effect, if not that he had anticipated, was just as 



136 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

well suited to his aim ; in the lethargy which fol- 
lowed the dose, the monastic penitence was imposed 
upon the king, perhaps in good faith, by the piety of 
his royal attendants. 

However this may be, Ervigius became the succes- 
sor of Wamba upon the throne, in consequence of 
three authentic instruments which he was able to 
produce : the first, which was signed by the great 
officers of the palace, stated the fact of the habit 
and tonsure being imposed ; the second, signed by 
Wamba himself, contained his renunciation of the 
crown in favor of Ervigius ; and the third was a 
paper, also signed by Wamba, enjoining upon the 
bishop of Toledo to proceed with the coronation of 
his successor. 

So Wamba passes out of history, into the shadow 
of a monastery, and Ervigius reigns. But from that 
time, the power and splendor of the Gothic kings 
declined towards their fall. 

Toledo, as it now stands upon the summit of a 
barren hill, retains but few traces of the days of its 
ancient Gothic splendor. Since Leovigild estab- 
lished his court in the city his palace has fallen to 
pieces, and its site is only guessed at. Another more 
splendid cathedral has risen upon the ruins of that 
where Recared abjured Arianism, and other churches, 
of architecture called Gothic, in a style little dreamed 
of by the builders of that early time, are also falling 
into ruin, leaving only the broken fragments of 
pointed arch and slender spire. The steep streets, 
winding about the almost perpendicular sides of the 
hill, and so narrow that you can touch both sides at 



TOLEDO— WA MBA . I 3 7 

once, were the work of the Moors who followed the 
Goths ; and so are light and graceful buildings of ara- 
besque tracery and the horse-shoe arch, also falling 
into ruin. Yet still in many of the low, solid struc- 
tures of stone, we may imagine we see the work of 
the real Gothic builder. It must be remembered 
that the style of architecture called Gothic, came 
into use many centuries after the kingdom of the 
Visigoths in Spain was forgotten, so that even in 
their ancient capital the arches and towers called 
" Gothic " have nothing whatever to do with the 
Goth, but are of much later date, erected by 
Moors or Christians who took pains to destroy 
whatever was left of the early architecture of the 
real Goths. 

The guide-book leaves little foothold in this pres- 
ent age for the Goth in Toledo, but there are houses 
still there which one may imagine to have been 
standing in the time of Wamba. A huge gate-way 
frowns upon the narrow street, with stone pillars 
surmounted by balls. Inside the great door is a 
smaller door, which opens mysteriously in answer to 
a knock. Within is a court-yard ; and a narrow stair- 
way, built into the wall, and lighted by a dim lamp 
from an alcove, leads to a corridor from which open 
long, low rooms with heavy beams across the ceiling, 
and huge mysterious side doors, that may not have 
been unlocked within the memory of man. These 
houses may be modern, may be Moorish, but the 
romantic traveller prefers to fancy that they were in 
existence before the glory of the Visigothic kings 
had departed from their ancient capital, and that the 



138 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



ghost of Wamba, after a life so abruptly withdrawn 
from the cares of the world, or the restless spirit of 
Roderic might at any moment slowly open that un- 
frequented door, green with damp and stiff with the 
rust of ages. 







CHAPTER X. 

RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 

WHERE a monarchy is elective, we must not ex- 
pect the same regularity of succession and the same 
precision of dates as if, at the death of one king, all 
men had determined that his son should succeed 
him. It seems probable, indeed, that Witiza and 
Roderick reigned in different parts of Spain at 
the same time. It seems probable that Roderick 
drove Witiza into exile. It is certain that the vices 
of Witiza and his selfish administration of power en- 
raged his people against him. While Witiza reigned 
at Toledo, Roderick reigned in the south, in Anda- 
lusia. Roderick had been in danger under the cru- 
elty of Witiza, as it is supposed that his father 
suffered from him. For it is said that the tyrant 
put out Theodofred's eyes. Roderick was the son of 
Theodofred. Fearing a like fate or worse, Roderick 
escaped from Spain, and allied himself with the Greek 
emperors. They consented to assist him in a struggle 
against the tyrant. Witiza's fate is uncertain. As 
we have said, he seems to have been exiled and to 
have died in exile. What is certain is that Roderick, 
who had before held control in Andalusia only, 
assumed the rule of all Spain in the year 709. 

139 



140 THE STORY, OF SPAIN. 

But he did not assume this rule without opposi- 
tion. The sons of Witiza still lived and expected to 
succeed him. The bishop of Toledo, Oppas, either 
their uncle or their brother, was at the head of the 
church. A certain Count Julian, who held an almost 
independent command in Africa, where the Goths 
possessed the posts of Ceuta, opposite to Gibraltar, 
Tangier, and Arsilla, belonged to their party of 
opposition. It was in the face of as formidable 
rivals as were thus represented that Roderick as- 
sumed the crown. Some form of election probably 
preceded his coronation, but the history, or rather 
the legend, is very vague about this, as it is in all the 
early history of Roderick. 

It was now a century since the success of Moham- 
med had given the signal for that marvellous wave of 
conquest, in which the Saracen armies swept so soon 
over Northern Africa and Western Asia. At the point 
where Africa comes § closest to Europe, where they 
say even that it once touched Europe, the wave of 
their conquest had been flung back by the stubborn 
resistance of the three Gothic garrisons which have 
been named. The Goths, in their prosperity, had 
taken possession of this part of Mauritania, which we 
now call Morocco. It should not be forgotten that 
it is one of the most fertile regions of the world, and 
were it not for its wretched misgovernment, the 
wheat harvests of Morocco would supply the food 
of Europe to-day. Indeed, when Roderick assumed 
the crown, the only considerable experience which 
the Goths had in war, was on these African fields. 
Excepting in the contests by which he had secured 



RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. I4I 

his own supremacy, the Goths had known no con- 
siderable wars for generations on Spanish soil. 

Of the Spanish army in Africa, Count Julian, as 
has been said, was commander. He had defeated 
Musa, the Saracen leader. Musa was called El 
Zahani. He was commissioned as governor of these 
regions by Miramolin Almanzor, who was the caliph 
of all Northern Africa at this time. But of a sudden, 
wholly to Musa's surprise, he received a visit from 
Count Julian, who offered to surrender to him the 
strongholds of the Goths, if he would give the assist- 
ance of the Saracen army to the party which was 
opposed to King Roderick. Musa was afraid to 
meddle with such lofty treason himself, and sent the 
traitor to Arabia with letters introducing him to 
Miramolin, the caliph. The caliph received him 
gladly, approved his plan, and sent him back to 
Musa with his approval. The treason was so atro- 
cious, that to this hour Count Julian is called "the 
Traitor " in the legends and histories of Spain, almost 
as if there were no other traitor. Musa put his sin- 
cerity to a test by sending over a hundred Arabs and 
four hundred Africans, under Tarif, to the northern 
shore. This chief, almost unknown, has had this 
curious fortune, that he has given the name to Tarifa, 
the place where he landed, and thus, because of the 
duties of goods imposed there, his name lives in the 
word " tariff," used so largely in the commercial 
legislation of the civilized world. All passed as 
Julian had promised. The men of the desert found 
themselves free to range at their will through exqui- 
site Andalusia. They gave, as well they might, the 



H 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

most tempting accounts of the country which had 
been betrayed to them. The next spring Musa sent 
over five thousand soldiers, under the command of 
Tarik, whose name, also, lives to us in " Gibraltar," 
where he landed, which was " Gebel-al-Tarik " (the 
\ mountain of Tarik).* The reader will remember that 
Gibraltar and Ceuta were the two pillars of Hercules. 
The symbols of these pillars still survive in the arms 
of Spain, on the Spanish coins, and in the familiar 
mark taken from them to designate a dollar ($), 
which represents the two pillars of Hercules encir- 
cled by the scroll " Ne plus ultra " (nothing beyond). 
It was the destiny of Spain, in opening the western 
world to Europe, to demonstrate the falsity of her 
own ancient motto, v 

Roderick heard of the treason of his officers, and 
did not flinch in his duty. But, at the best, the 
contest was not an easy one, and Roderick and his 
Goths were not at their best. His own right of suc- 
cession was disputed. Beside this, the Goths had 
been for generations now at peace. It is at this 
juncture that we are to place the legend of his visit 
to the cave of Hercules: 

There came to the king the keepers of that house 
which is in Toledo which they call Pleasure with 
Pain ; and it was called also by another name, The 
Honor of God. Now this house had been built by 
Hercules, and Hercules had commanded that neither 
king nor lord of Spain should seek to know that which 
was within. And every one instead should put a lock 
upon the doors of this house, and fasten it with his 

* The reader must not confound Tarif and Tarik. 




GIBRALTAR. 



143 



144 THE STORY OF SPAIN 

key. And the King Don Roderick did the same. But 
remembering this afterward, in an evil moment he 
insisted on opening all the locks, his knights in vain 
attempting to dissuade him. They opened all the 
locks, and the king pushed the door and entered 
with his chiefs. Here, in a square hall, they found 
a bed, and in the bed the statue of a man exceeding 
great, and in the man's hand was a scroll. And on 
the scroll the king read that the man was Hercules 
the Strong — " Never could any conquer me, save 
only Death. Look well to what thou doest, for from 
this world thou w 7 ilt carry with thee nothing but the 
good which thou hast done." 

After Don Roderick had read this he was very 
sorry he had undertaken this enterprise. But he 
would not retreat, but pushed on with his chiefs. 
They came into an apartment of which one part was 
white as snow, and that over against it more black 
than pitch. One part was green as emerald, and. 
that which was over against it was redder than fresh 
blood. There was a door in it, cunningly made, and 
on the door a legend that Hercules built this house 
in the 306th year of Adam. And when the king 
had read these letters, and understood that which 
they said, he opened the door, and when it was 
opened they found Hebrew letters which said : 
" This house is one of the wonders of Hercules." 
And when they had read these letters they saw a 
niche made in that pillar, in which was a coffer of 
silver, right subtly wrought, and after a strange 
manner, and it was gilded, and covered with many 
precious stones, and of great price, and it was fast- 



RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 1 45 

ened with a lock of mother-of-pearl. And this was 
made in such a manner that it was a strange thing, 
and there were cut upon it Greek letters which said : 
" It cannot be but that the king, in whose time this 
coffer shall be opened, shall see wonders before his 
death : thus said Hercules the Lord of Greece and 
of Spain, who knew some of those things which are 
to come." And when the king understood this, he 
said : " Within this coffer lies that which I seek to 
know, and which Hercules has so strongly forbidden 
to be known." And he took the lock and broke it 
with his hands, for there was no other who durst 
break it ; and when the lock was broken, and the 
coffer open, they found nothing within except a 
white cloth folded between two pieces of copper ; 
and he took it and opened it, and found Moors por- 
trayed therein, with turbans and banners in their 
hands, and with their swords round their necks, and 
their bows behind them at the saddle-bow ; and over 
these figures were letters which said : " When this 
cloth shall be opened, and these figures seen, men 
apparelled like them shall conquer Spain and shall 
be Lords thereof." 

This picturesque fiction, as we need hardly say, is 
the work of later times. The hard fact is that The- 
odemir, Roderick's lieutenant in Andalusia, reported 
to his sovereign the invarion of the Saracens. Their 
first force of five thousand soldiers was enlarged by 
reinforcements of seven thousand more. Theodemir 
wrote to Roderick that a horde of Africans had 
landed — " So strange is their appearance that we 
might take them for inhabitants of the sky. Send 



146 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

me more troops without a moment's delay. Collect 
all who could bear arms." Roderick was, at the 
moment, attempting to reduce some of the adherents 
of Witiza's family. But the call was too pressing to 
be disregarded. The king rallied his utmost forces, 
and appeared on the scene of action with an army so 
large that the Moors were dismayed. It is said that 
he had ninety thousand men in arms. But Tarik 
had literally burned his ships behind him. His 
men knew he had. He told them that in victory was 
their only chance. And the result was the reward 
of his desperate courage. In the opening skirmishes 
of the war the Moors held the advantage which they 
at first won. And in the great conflict, which for 
its consequences must be counted one of the critical 
battles of history, they were successful. 

The two armies met on the plains of Xeres, about 
two leagues from Cadiz. It is the Xeres, whose 
vineyards are so well known to the modern world 
for their wine. The little stream of the Guadalete, 
which falls into the bay near Cadiz, divided the two 
armies. After three days of skirmishing they joined 
in serious battle. Stories which cannot be fully 
credited speak of Roderick as going into battle on a 
car of ivory, drawn by two white mules, in a robe of 
silk embroidered with gold. And Gibbon w r ell says 
that Alaric, the great Gothic leader, might well have 
blushed to see his unworthy successor. But the 
chariot and the robe, and the diadem of pearls which 
go with them, are probably the creation of the sneers 
of conquerors. Roderick does not seem to have 
misbehaved in the fight itself. The multitude of the 



RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 1 47 

Goths indeed would have secured their success, 
had they been quite sure of the loyalty of all their 
forces. As it was, they pressed the Moors severely. 
Again Tarik had to remind his men that they could 
only retire to the sea, and ask what they would do 
there. He led the way in person, in an attack on 
the enemy. His men followed willingly, fighting for 
victory or paradise. The Goths were not used to such 
enemies. They did not yield without a struggle. It 
is said that sixteen thousand men were killed in the 
battle. The issue was, that the Gothic army was 
broken by Tank's impetuous attack. The divided 
sections of it retreated, and at last fled in confusion. 
Roderick himself in the flight was drowned in the 
Quadalquivir. The Moors took possession of his 
diadem, his robes, and his horse. And some head, 
called Roderick's, was sent as far as the palace at 
Damascus, as a trophy of the battle. But in truth 
the body of the king had been lost in the river. 

The historians of both parties account for this 
rout by alleging treason in the army of Roderick 
The two sons of Witiza, and his brother the Bishop 
of Toledo, held important posts, and their defection 
at a critical juncture is enough to account for the 
defeat, without any cowardice on the part of the 
king. The pursuit continued for three days, and the 
remnants of the Gothic army were for the moment 
scattered. 

Tarik received from Musa instructions which bade 
him wait before attempting the subjugation of the 
Peninsula. But Count Julian, " the Traitor," gave 
other and wiser advice. He knew the Gothic force, 



14^ THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

and he knew that they must act promptly, if they 
were to succeed at all. By a bold push he took the 
town of Cordova. The garrison retired to the 
church, and there maintained a siege for three 
months. Tarik advanced, through La Mancha, to 
the Tagus, and appeared under the walls of Toledo. 
The city capitulated on terms which allowed the 
continuance of religious rites in some churches, and 
permitted such citizens as wished, to depart with 
their property. From that time the Moor reigned in 
Toledo, though Cordova and Granada were more 
agreeable capitals. And this quaint and curious 
city still shows memorials of Moorish sway, mixed 
with the houses of Goths, which still show the 
escutcheons of the men who fought with Roderick. 
Tarik rewarded the Jews he found there, by terms of 
toleration, which repaid in a manner the essential 
services they had rendered him from the beginning. 
Tarik did not tarry at Toledo even. He continued 
his triumphal march to the bay of Biscay, and only 
returned to Toledo when it was necessary for him to 
meet the wrath of his master Musa. 

Musa had followed his lieutenant with a new army 
of eighteen thousand men. He marched against 
Seville and Merida, which were still held by garri- 
sons loyal to Roderick. When he beheld the re- 
mains of Roman art, which have been described in 
another chapter, Musa said : " The human race must 
have united their art and power to found this city. 
Happy shall be the man who masters it." After a 
long siege of the city, the "Emeriti" whose ancestors 
had been so called because the veterans of Augustus, 



RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 1 49 

surrendered. Musa was able to go on and meet his 
disobedient but successful lieutenant. 

Tarik met him midway between Merida and To- 
ledo. Musa demanded and received a rigid account 
of the treasures of Spain. Tarik was suspected and 
abused ; he was imprisoned, reviled, and scourged. 
Yet, after these insults, Musa appointed him to 
command in the reduction of the northeast. The 
Gothic armies were driven, by his success, beyond 
the Pyrenees. After three hundred years of con- 
quest they had to take refuge in the " Province " of 
Gaul. 

Little more than two years sufficed for the reduc- 
tion of Spain to a province which rendered allegiance 
to the caliph at Damascus. In some of the valleys 
of the mountains were left Christian fugitives who 
had not surrendered. In most of the conquered 
cities the Christians were permitted to maintain their 
rites. For some time Theodemir, the spirited offi- 
cer, whom we have seen as first meeting the on- 
slaught of the Moors, maintained that sort of war in 
which Spain delights, and of which her name — 
"guerrilla," " a little war " — has been adopted by all 
nations. But Theodemir at last consented to pay 
tribute, to give up some cities which he held, and 
not to make any further efforts against the caliph. 

It was in the year 411 that Ataulphus had taken 
possession of Spain, where Vandals, Ulans, and 
Sueves had led the way, and had established his 
capital there. Just three centuries after, in the year 
711, Roderick lost his kingdom and his life. He is 
popularly called the last of the Goths, and properly 



I50 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

so if we mean the last of the Gothic kings. Theo- 
demir can hardly be called a king, and Pelayo, from 
whose valor later kings will claim, is only a rebel, 
in the mountains. 

The downfall of Roderick and his people makes a 
subject too pathetic to have been neglected in liter- 
ature. Mr. Southey's " Roderick, the Last of the 
Goths," published in i8i4,had in that day a reputation 
of its own. But it won that reputation rather by the 
learning with which the author had compiled it, than 
to any interest which he added to Roderick's mourn- 
ful story. A very short extract is sufficent to give 
a notion of its quality. Here is a passage in which 
the siege of Merida is referred to : 

RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 

' ' They went forth ; 
They cross'd the stream ; and when Romano turned 
For his last look toward the Castilian towers, 
Far off the Moorish standards in the light 
Of morn were glittering, where the miscreant host 
Toward the Lusitanian capital 
To lay. their siege advanced ; the eastern breeze 
Bore to the fearful travellers far away 
The sound of horn and tambour o'er the plain. 
All day they hasten'd, and when evening fell, 
Sped toward the setting sun, as if its line 
Of glory came from heaven to point their course. 
But feeble were the feet of that old man 
For such a weary length of way ; and now 
Being pass'd the danger (for in Merida 
Sacaru long in resolute defence 
Withstood the tide of war), with easier pace 
The wanderers journey'd on ; till having cross'd 
Rich Tagus, and the rapid Zezere, 



RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 



151 



They from Albardos' hoary height beheld 
Pine-forest, fruitful vale, and that fair lake 
Where Alcoa, mingled there with Baza's stream, 
Rests on its passage to the Western Sea — 
That sea the aim and boundary of their toil. 




MOORISH TOWER. TOLEDO. 



PART III. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 

The people who defeated Roderick the Goth and 
took possession of his kingdom, were the followers of 
Islam, or Mohammedans, who were persuaded by 
their creed that they could conquer the whole world. 
They were so successful in battle that they overran 
the whole of Arabia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, 
and in less than a hundred years from the time when 
their religion was established they had made for 
themselves a foothold in Spain. 

Mohammed, the founder of their religion was born 
in Mecca about five centuries after Christ. Mis fol- 
lowers believe him to be the real Messiah, and date 
their 3'ears from him as we date ours from the birth 
of Christ. The Koran, which is their book of laws, ex- 
acts military service from every one, and assures the 
joys of heaven to every martyr who falls in battle, 
so that the armies of their chiefs were large, and the 
courage of their warriors reliable. Those with whom 
we have to do are called Moors, because of their 
residence in Morocco, and in general they bear in 
the history of that time the name of Saracens, by 
which name they were called by the Christian writers 
and crusaders of the middle ages. They were the 

155 



156 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

detestation of the Christian world, because they de- 
nied the supreme authority of Jesus Christ, and 
because they very early took possession of Jerusalem 
and the Holy Sepulchre, which they have retained, 
with brief intervals, until this day. 

In all the full force and glory of their first tri- 
umphs they swept over Northern Africa, and made 
their way into the heart of Spain, intending to carry 
the banner of the prophet to the very shores of the 
Baltic, and, indeed, subjugate all Europe on their 
way back to Damascus, which was the home of their 
highest ruler. 

Abderahman, their leader, carried the Moslem 
army into France, destroying every thing before 
him ; but near Tours he was checked in a memora- 
ble battle by the famous Charles Martel (a.D. 732). 
Three hundred thousand Saracens fell under the 
sword, say the old chroniclers, with their usual ex- 
aggeration. It was a great victory, and all Chris- 
tendom breathed freefy when it was over. The fight 
was long and bloody ; when darkness came the 
ground was strewn with bodies, and Abderahman, 
the Moslem leader, was among the slain. But the 
Christians could not be sure that the victory was 
theirs, and they remained in their tents under arms 
all night. At break of day they were prepared to 
renew the struggle ; the tents of the Arabs, extend- 
ing as far as the eye could reach, were still before 
them, but not a living creature came forth to meet 
them. The enemy had abandoned their camp, their 
own wealth, and the immense plunder which they 
had amassed in their hitherto victorious progress. 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 57 

Relinquishing all for the sake of safety, they had 
silently crept away, in this case without folding their 
tents, after the manner of the typical Arab. 

Christendom was saved. Pope and monk, prince 
and peasant thanked heaven in an ecstasy of devo- 
tion for so signal a victory. 

After this the Moslems, as the followers of Mo- 
hammed we're also called, recognizing that they 
were not invulnerable, moderated their ambition ; 
and those who had established themselves in Spain 
now turned their attention to prosperous living 
there. 

The country was governed, at first, by viceroys 
called emirs, sent from the caliphate at Damascus. 
This lasted about forty years, but they were not 
years of tranquillity. Twenty different emirs had 
been either appointed, or had raised themselves to 
direct the government. Jealousy of one another, 
revolt, rebellion, disturbed the repose of the country. 
The caliphs were too remote to remedy such evils. 

At this time there reigned at Damascus the house 
of the Omeyyades, but civil dissensions prevailed 
there, as in Spain, and in a contest between this family 
and another called the Abbasides, all the Omeyyades 
were treacherously massacred by the others, who 
took the throne for themselves. All but two were 
killed : one of them fled to a corner of Arabia, where 
his descendants ruled for a long time ; the other 
became great in Spain. 

He was named Abderahman. He effected his 
escape from Damascus with horses and money, and 
choosing unfrequented paths, succeeded in joining a 



158 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

band of Bedouins, wandering Arab tribes, who from 
time immemorial have lived in tents, passing from 
one place to another, with no continuing city. 
Their tents were then, doubtless, as they are now, 
dark brown, with low, shelving sides like the roof of 
a house. They wear a woollen garment with a belt 
round it containing their weapons, which are nu- 
merous and dangerous ; over their head is thrown the 
picturesque kufia, or square handkerchief folded 
cornerwise. Their hands are against every man, and 
and so it has been always ; but they lead peaceful 
lives among themselves with their flocks and herds, 
and practise, after their own fashion, an open hospi- 
tality. 

They received the prince kindly, and he lived 
with them some time, accommodating himself to 
their simple habits, but passing from one tribe to 
another for fear of being traced and discovered by 
the enemies of his house. From Arabia he thus 
wandered into Africa, through Egypt, as far as 
Barca, where the governor, who was devoted to the 
Abbasides, heard about him. Learning that a young 
stranger was within his territory, who might answer 
to the description of the fugitive prince everywhere 
sought by the new caliph, this governor sent out 
agents in all directions to seize the youth. 

The tribe of Bedouins with whom he was, became 
very fond of him, and, besides, they were always 
ready to do an ill-turn to the agents of civilization. 
When, therefore, a troop of horsemen, one evening, 
surrounded their tents, inquiring for a handsome 
young Syrian, they thought of nothing less than 




159 



l6o THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

betraying their guest. They replied that they had 
seen such a person, and in fact he was at that 
moment out hunting wild beasts with some of their 
own young men ; that very likely the party might 
be found passing the night in a valley, at some dis- 
tance, which they described at length, with a careful 
description how to get there. The officers of the 
governor were very much obliged, 'and rode off 
towards the valley. As soon as they were surely off, 
the Bedouins ran and woke up their guest, who, all 
the time, had been comfortably asleep in the best 
spare tent. 

Abderahman was full of gratitude. As it was no 
longer safe for him to linger there, he fled with some 
of the bold young men of the tribe into the desert. 
After some days of fatigue and thirst on friendless 
plains of sand, he reached a town in Mauritania, of 
which the sheik was a kinsman of his mother. Here 
he was well received and protected. 

About this time there was a meeting in Cordova of 
some eighty of the wisest chiefs of the Arabs, to 
discuss the condition of affairs of state, the confu- 
sion around them, and the anarchy at Damascus. 
Their chiefs were all devoted to the family of 
the Omeyyades, and they regarded the Abbasides as 
usurpers. 

One of the members of the meeting, a sheik named 
Wahib, recited the tale of the wandering prince of 
the royal Omeyyades, and ended by saying : 

"Abderahman still remains in Mauritania ; let him 
be our sovereign." 

The proposal was received with unanimous ap- 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. l6l 

plause. Wahib, with a companion, deputed by the 
assembly to offer an independent crown to the young 
prince, passed over into Africa, found him, and laid 
before him his mission. They did not disguise the 
difficulties to be contended with, but they assured 
him of their own fidelity, and of the obedience of 
many tribes. The prince immediately accepted the 
proposal. 

" Noble deputies," said he, " I will unite my des- 
tiny with yours. I will go and fight with you. 
Young as I am, misfortune has already proved me, 
and has not yet found me wanting." 

Abderahman felt bound to consult his relatives, 
the sheiks, who had so kindly received him, and take 
their opinion. 

" Go, my son," said his kinsman, the oldest of all. 
" It is the finger of Heaven that beckons you. Your 
scimitar shall restore the honor of your line." 

Every young man in the tribe longed to accom 
pany the prince ; he selected from them seven hun- 
dred and fifty well-armed horsemen for the expedi- 
tion. 

It was a bold undertaking, to overthrow the agent 
of a well-established government, and to build up an 
independent kingdom in a country full of turbulent 
spirits. The Christians, although conquered, were 
not subdued, but ready to rise at any moment, while 
the officers of the ruling caliph, both great and small, 
were prepared to resist the overthrow of the existing 
power. 

The emir then in control of Spain under the new 
Abbaside caliph, was named Yussuf. He happened 



1 62 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

to be returning from Saragossa with a couple of 
captives laden with chains, when, as he was halting 
one day in his pavilion, on account of the heat of 
noon-day, among the mountains, on his way from 
Toledo to Cordova, he was surprised by the appear- 
ance of a messenger, hot and breathless with haste, 
who presented to him an anonymous note addressed 
to himself. The letter informed him that his reign 
was about to expire, that the destroyer of his power 
was rapidly approaching. 

While Yussef was trying to make out what this 
could mean, another messenger, despatched by his 
son from Cordova, came up, with the startling in- 
telligence that a prince of the Omeyyades, invited 
by Arabian, Syrian, and Egyptian sheiks, was already 
advancing with a body of troops. 

In a transport of fury, Yussef ordered the two 
prisoners he had with him, although they had noth- 
ing at all to do with the business, to be cut to pieces, 
after which, having disposed of them, he hastened 
towards Cordova, despatching messengers in all di- 
rections to raise troops for his defence. 

Abderahman landed on the southern coast of 
Spain in the early part of the year 755. The people 
received him with open arms, and shouts of welcome. 
His appearance was greatly in his favor, his bearing 
majestic, his countenance open and gracious. His 
march to Seville was one continued triumph, twenty 
thousand scimitars, it is said, were at his disposal. 
The towns through which he passed and those in the 
neighborhood sent deputies with their submission, 
and the offer of their services. 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 63 

Yussef and his party offered a stout resistance, but 
the bravery of Abderahman and the enthusiasm of 
his followers drove them from their territory, and 
made the emir negotiate for peace. In the short space 
of one year the prince had triumphed over all opposi- 
tion, and established himself as king, independent of 
control from the Caliph of Damascus, whose sover- 
eignty he did not acknowledge. 

Abderahman, now at peace, devoted himself to the 
improvement of his capital. Under his rule and that 
of his successors, Cordova came to be a magnificent 
city. Abderahman, by building embankments, nar- 
rowed the bed of the Guadalquivir, and transformed 
the space rescued from the waters into extensive 
gardens. He is said to have been the first who 
transplanted the palm into the Peninsula, where it 
was not native, although the climate suits it well. 
He is described by Arabic poets as saying to the 
tree : " Beautiful palm ! thou, like me, art a stranger 
in the land ; but breezes from our West kiss thy 
broad leaves, thy roots strike into a fertile soil, thy 
head rises into a pure heaven. Before I was banished 
from my home, my tears bedewed thy kindred, upon 
the banks of the Euphrates, but the palm and the 
river have forgotten my grief." 

For nearly three centuries after this, Spain was 
governed by the descendants of the house of Omey- 
yah, of whom the first was the fugitive Prince 
Abderahman. During this time the sovereign of 
Damascus was not of this family, because the throne 
had passed into the hands of their enemies, of the 
house of Abbas. These caliphs were too much oc- 



164 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

cupied with troubles at home, in securing their own 
seats, to disturb the new dynasty in Spain, a province 
too far off in those days to be easily controlled. Yus- 
suf, the deposed emir, and after his death, his sons 
were always ready to make trouble, and raise sedi- 
tion ; but the party of the king always proved the 
stronger, and the government, although seldom with- 
out discord, became firmly established. 

The period during which the family of Omeyyah 
thus reigned in the Peninsula forms the most brilliant 
part of the history of the Arabs in Spain. The new 
government resembled in form that of the East- 
ern caliphs. The sovereign was called the " Com- 
mander of the Faithful," and his supremacy was both 
spiritual and temporal. 

The caliph had the right to select a successor from 
his own family. The princes of the blood were en- 
trusted to the care of learned men, to be taught the 
duties befitting their station. In the academies of 
Cordova, which were celebrated, they mingled in 
disputation, and often carried off the prizes for poetry 
and eloquence. Many of them amused their leisure 
with writing poetry, and wrote elaborate works, which 
have maintained to this day their reputation with 
Arabic scholars. 

The Omeyyades, in general, ruled their kingdom 
with an authority founded in the affection of their 
subjects, as is shown by their long reigns, their peace- 
ful deaths, and the unbroken line of succession in 
one family for many years. They supported a large 
military force, often keeping two or three armies in 
the field at the same time. The flower of these 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 65 

forces was a body-guard of twelve thousand men, 
some of them Christians, superbly equipped, and with 
officers belonging to the royal family. 

These monarchs displayed their munificence in 
building palaces, mosques, and hospitals. The 
Arabs have always shown a love for moving water, 
and a knowledge of the great importance of irriga- 
tion. They constructed aqueducts which rivalled 
in their porportions those of the Romans, penetrat- 
ing the sides of mountains, or crossing the valleys 
upon lofty arches. Fountains sparkled in their gar- 
dens, and places now parched and bare, were, in the 
days of the Spanish Arab, rich and verdant gardens 
made by the careful irrigation they understood so 
well. 

It was in the reign of another Abderahman of 
this family, that the splendid palace of Azhara was 
built, of which now nothing remains but a few frag- 
ments of broken pillars. It was a fairy palace. The 
roof is said to have been supported by more than 
four thousand pillars of variegated marble. The 
floors and walls were of the same material ; the chief 
apartments were adorned with fountains. The whole 
was surrounded with magnificent gardens, in which 
a pavilion stood, resting on pillars of white marble 
ornamented with gold, in the centre of which was a 
fountain of quicksilver which played all the time, re- 
flecting the rays of the sun. 

Not a vestige of this splendor remains, but the 
Mosque of Cordova, although it is denuded of its 
original decorations, and most of its ornament, is still 
standing, to give an idea of the scale of magnificence 



1 66 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

of the Spanish Caliphs. The first impression on 
entering it is of a maze of pillars. It has often been 
compared to pine-forest, where vistas of lofty trunks 
are seen overarched by branches. Of these pillars 
there were once more than twelve hundred, all differ- 
ent, for they were brought from different countries, 
France, Carthage, and even Constantinople. They 
are of marble of different hues and kinds, green and 
red jasper, deep black, white, red rose, and emerald 
porphyry. 

In the day of its glory, the gates of the Mosque 
were of embossed bronze ; myriads of lamps il- 
lumined the lofty roof, which glistened with gilding 
and vivid colors. Its walls were carved like lace- 
work, and its arches were studded with emeralds and 
rubies. 

The jewels and gold have long been stolen, the rich 
coloring of the walls is hidden by whitewash ; in the 
very middle of the forest of pillars, a modern chapel 
was built in the tinie of Charles V. But in spite of 
so much ignorance and neglect, enough of the 
building remains to testify to the magnificence and 
religious ardor of the dynasty, which could spend 
vast wealth in its erection. 

The Spanish Arabs reached the height of their im- 
portance in the reign of Alhakem the Second, a mon- 
arch who employed his despotic power for the real 
happiness and improvement of his subjects. In his 
refined taste, his desire for knowledge, and his liberal 
patronage, he may be ranking among the most en- 
lightened rulers. He assembled the eminent schol- 
ars of his time, both native and foreigners, at his 




MOSQUE AT CORDOVA. 



167 



1 68 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

court, and to Cordova. He made his palace the 
familiar resort of men of letters, and selected suitable 
persons to write books for him about natural history, 
or the history of mankind. He was himself a stu- 
dent, and above all intent upon collecting for himself 
a fine library. He employed agents all over the 
world, to collect manuscripts for him. 

Such a spirit in the sovereign gave a literary im- 
pulse to the whole of Spain. Not only men, but 
women, of the highest rank devoted themselves to 
letters, and contended for prizes in eloquence and 
poetry. Cordova was the centre of all this learning. 
The reputation of its schools attracted scholars from 
all Christendom. For this period of Saracen literary 
brilliancy corresponds with a time of deepest barbar- 
ism in the rest of Europe, when the only libraries 
were collections, in monasteries, of three or four hun- 
dred volumes. The great library" of Cordova is said 
to have contained six hundred thousand. 

Such an elevation of wealth and intellectual de- 
velopment did not last very long. The successes of 
Alhakem were less distinguished, and the empire was 
broken up by dissension. The magnificent capital 
dwindled into a second-rate city. 

The son and successor of Alhakem was but eleven 
years old when he ascended the throne, and Alman- 
zor was made regent, a man of great genius, valor, 
and activity. He made constant war upon the 
Christians, who were all this time increasing in 
power in the northern parts of Spain. Almanzor's 
hostility was active against the enemies of the Cres- 
cent, but the Christians were sometimes ready for 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 69 

him. On one occasion both armies met near the 
walls of Leon. 

When the regent beheld the dense ranks of his 
opponents, he felt some anxiety for the result. Turn- 
ing to cue of his generals, he asked : 

" How many good soldiers dost thou think we may 
number in our army ? " 

" Thou shouldst know thyself," replied Mustapha. 

" I do not," said Almanzor ; " dost thou think 
there are a thousand ? " 

" A thousand ! nothing like the number." 

" Five hundred ? " 

"No!" 

"Fifty?" 

" To speak candidly," replied Mustapha, " I would 
not vouch for more than three." He was, of course, 
obliged to explain, as the camp was crowded with 
armed men. It seems that a Christian knight, as was 
the custom of these times, had just presented himself 
with a challenge to single combat. Two had ac- 
cepted, and had been, one after the other, over- 
thrown. No third opponent appeared, and the 
Christian knight was much elated, crying out with a 
loud voice, "Why do ye loiter, cowards!" The 
Christians applauded, the Moslems foamed with 
wrath, and an Andalusian horseman left the ranks for 
the encounter, but he too was laid low. The victor 
mounted a fresh horse, and returned to challenge the 
whole host of the misbelievers. 

Almanzor, summoned by the words of Mustapha, 
witnessed the last challenge, and turning to him, 
he said, " You are right. I perceive that I had but 
three men cf valor among my soldiers." 



170 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

"Wait a moment, sire," said Mustapha. "Dost 
thou perceive that beautiful tiger-skin which covers 
his horse ? It shall soon be thine!" and mounting 
his steed he advanced toward the Christian. 

The knight keenly eyed his fourth antagonist, and 
proudly demanded, " Who and what are thou ? " 

" Here is my nobility," replied Mustapha, shaking 
his lance ; and, plunging at once into combat, the 
Moslem, after a severe struggle, wounded the Chris- 
tian, who reeled in his saddle and fell to the ground. 
Mustapha dismounted, cut of! the knight's head, 
and returned with it to Almanzor. He presented 
the tiger-skin to his liege lord, who, how T ever, allowed 
him to keep it, as a reward for his prowess. 

Internal dissension, treachery, the murder of kings 
for the sake of succession, destroyed the noble race 
of Omeyyah, and the Caliphate of the West ended 
with Hixem III., who retired, before the mob who 
demanded his deposition, to private life. From this 
period (a.D. 103 1), Moslem Spain was governed by 
independent petty kings. The great kingdom of 
the Omeyyades fell by the turbulence of its own 
children. 

Cordova, their capital, once the centre of European 
civilization, the successful rival of Bagdad and Da- 
mascus, the seat of learning and science, is a small, 
silent town, a city of the dead. The gardens and 
orchards are gone, and the valleys are parched and 
dry, without trees, and bare. 



CHAPTER XII. 
the so:;g cf roland. 

In the year yjy Charlemagne had convoked at 
Paderborn in Westphalia, an assembly of the various 
nations which were subject to his sceptre. Thither 
came before him as a suppliant, Ibn-el Arabi, the 
Saracen governor of Saragossa. He came to implore 
the aid of the great king of the Franks against 
Abderahman, the Omeyyad usurper, whose genius 
and daring had made him all but master of Spain. 

Charlemagne eagerly grasped at the occasion. 
Possibly he might win and keep some Spanish 
cities, possibly alleviate the condition of the Chris- 
tians. In any case, there w r ere influence and glory to 
be gained, so he assembled a mighty army, and in the 
spring of f/S marched towards the Pyrenees. He 
crossed them, passing through the valley of Ronces- 
valles, took Pampeluna, and moved straight upon 
Saragossa. But there his good fortune ended. The 
presence of the detested unbeliever had united all 
factions cf the Moslems. Saragossa made a ccsper- 
ate defence. The Franks failed to capture it, and a 
negotiation entered. Charlemagne, according to the 
chronicles, received large presents of gold with hos- 
tages, and promises of fidelity. However this may 

171 



I? 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

have been, he certainly raised the siege and marched 
toward France, levelling to the ground the walls of 
Pampeluna on his way. But when, with the van of 
his army, he had passed through the defiles, a new 
enemy,the Basques, or Gascons of the mountains, as- 
sailed his rear. 

" While the army, compelled thereto by the nature 
of the ground and the straitness of the defile, 
marched in a long and narrow line, the Basques, who 
lay in ambush on the crests, rushed suddenly from 
their heights on the men who were stationed in the 
rear-guard to protect those in front. The Basques 
cast them down into the valley beneath, and, in the 
battle that ensued, slew them to the last man. Hav- 
ing pillaged the baggage, they made their escape, 
and rapidly dispersed under favor of the night, 
which was now drawing on. The success of the 
Basques was greatly due to the lightness of their 
arms and the character of the ground. The Franks, 
on the other hand, heavily armed, were in every re- 
spect an unequal match for their enemies. In this 
battle perished Aeggihard, provost of the royal 
table ; Anselm, count of the palace ; and Hrustlau- 
dus, prefect of the march of Brittany. There was 
no means of taking vengeance for this blow, for the 
enemy dispersed so rapidly that no information 
could be had of the place where they were to be 
found." 

This is the account of the battle of Roncesvalles, 
given by Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne. 
The event was the subject of many ballads, sung or 
recited perhaps soon after it happened, and one of 



THE SONG OF ROLAND. 173 

them has become very famous — the song of Ro- 
land. It belongs almost as much to Spanish story as 
to France, since the scene of it is on or near Spanish 
soil. There are many points of divergence between 
the history and the legend ; for instance, in the lat- 
ter, Charlemagne is in the extreme of old age, with 
his white beard flowing down over mail and belt. 
At the epoch fixed by his historians for the disaster, 
he was thirty-six years old. 

The song relates how our king, the Emperor 
Charlemagne, hath been for seven full years in 
Spain. City, keep, and castle alike went down be- 
fore him, except Saragossa, held by King Marsillius, 
who seeks not the grace of God, but serves Moham- 
med, who, however, saved him not from his fate. 

King Massillius made his council-seat in Saragossa 
upon a throne of azure marble. There stood his 
courtiers around him, and before him twenty thou- 
sand men and more, and he sought counsel from his 
dukes and counts. One of them, a wise heathen, 
advised him to humble himself before Charlemagne 
with tribute of seven hundred camels and a thou- 
sand hawks, four hundred mules laden with fifty 
wagon loads of silver and gold, and the offer of hos- 
tages. All assented to this, and ten messengers on 
ten fair mules of snowy white, with olive boughs in 
their hands, rode to seek the emperor where he sate 
besieging a city in the Pyrenees. They found him 
in a jocund mood, for the city had just fallen. He 
was in an orchard, surrounded by his brave cavaliers, 
full fifteen thousand, sitting upon white carpets play- 
ing games of chess or lightly fencing. Charlemagne 



174 . THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

himself sat under a pine close beside an eglantine, 
upon a throne of beaten gold. 

The ten messengers alighted before him with all 
observance and gave their errand, promising the 
hawks and mules and camels, and also that later on 
the king would come and be baptized as a Christian. 

The Saracens were treated with great hospitality, 
and the next morning, the emperor held a council 
of his knights, under a pine-tree. There among the 
rest were Roland and his faithful Olivier, and there 
was Ganelon, by whom was the deed of treason done. 
When the emperor had explained the message of 
the Saracen king, Roland rose, and said : " Trust him 
not. He hath ever been a traitor. Lead us on to 
battle and to Saragossa." But Ganelon advised the 
opposite cause, and all the knights agreed with him 
that peace was better. It was questioned now who 
should be sent to King Marsillius with the reply of 
the emperor, a dangerous mission, but a glorious one. 
Roland proposed Ganelon, who, as it happened, was 
his step-father. Every one thought this a good ap- 
pointment, but Ganelon burst into rage against 
Roland, accusing him of wishing to send him on a 
fatal errand. " Let me go then ! " cried Roland. 
But Charlemagne said no, that Ganelon was the one. 
Ganelon was thus forced to go, but he went unwil- 
lingly home to his hostel, and donned his choicest 
of arms and harness, mounted his charger Tasche- 
brun, with his good sword Murgleis at his side. 
His followers stood about him in tears as for one 
who was going to his death, and they all charged it 
upon Roland, who had proposed it with a hope for 
his destruction. 



THE SONG OF ROLAND. 



/ 5 



Ganelon passed on his journey, and left their sight, 
and joining the Saracen envoys, they rode along to- 
gether, till they drew bridle in Saragossa and 
alighted beneath a yew-tree. 




FUENTARABIA. 



They found the monarch of Spain under a pine- 
tree, upon a throne covered with Alexandrian silk, 
surrounded by twenty thousand Saracens, from whom 
came no breath nor sound, so did they strain to hear 



the tidings of the messengers. 



176 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

When Ganelon came to the king, he handed him 
a scroll containing the will of his royal master. If 
Marsillius should become a Christian, peace should 
be declared. He should keep half his kingdom of 
Spain, the other half to be given to Count Roland, 
the nephew of the king. If he should refuse these con- 
ditions, the scroll ran : " You shall be bound in 
strong fetters, and led to Aix, and there your head 
shall be struck off." At first the Saracens were in 
a great rage, but the king concluded to parley with 
Ganelon, and between them a treacherous thing was 
planned, out of the fears of the heathen, and the 
hatred Ganelon had for his kinsman Roland. In this 
discourse the heathen said : 

" I marvel that Charlemagne tires not yet of war, 
at his age, which is, I believe, two hundred years, 
and after overrunning so many lands." 

" Not while his nephew Roland lives, will he tire," 
replied Ganelon, " and Olivier besides, and the 
twelve peers he loves so much, with twenty thousand 
Franks beside." 

Ganelon then urged King Marsillius to send to 
the emperor gifts and hostages, and let him go back 
into France. " But the rear," he continued, " will 
tarry behind, with Roland and Olivier, and you may 
there bring upon them your army of a hundred 
thousand heathens. Roland will be slain, and after 
that, the marvellous hosts of the emperor will melt 
away and your land will repose in peace." 

King Marsillius kissed him in the neck, and Gane- 
lon swore to Roland's fall on the relics in the hilt of 
his sword Murgleis, while Marsillius swore upon the 



THE SONG OF ROLAND. IJJ 

book containing the laws of Mahmoud and Terma- 
gaunt to keep the compact. Ganelon received gifts 
from the chief heathen, and Braminonde, King Mar- 
sillius' queen, sent clasps of gold and jacinth and 
amethyst to his spouse, which he hid within his 
boot. So Ganelon returned to Charlemagne. These 
were his words : " May God you save ! I bring the 
keys of Saragossa, vast treasure, and twenty hos- 
tages. For the Saracen king, before a month, he 
will follow you into France, and bend the knee to 
our Christian law, and swear homage to you for his 
Spanish realm." 

" Now praise to God," said the emperor, " and 
thanks to you, my Ganelon." 

A thousand clarions then resounded, the sumpter 
mules were girt, and the Franks made ready to re- 
turn to France. 

Charlemagne had wasted Spain, sacked her cities, 
seized her castles, and now his great army are en- 
camped, and sleeping on their way home across the 
Pyrenees. Alas ! meanwhile the heathen here were 
riding on the track of the Christians, all armed in 
steel, their lances poised, their helmets laced, their 
falchions glittering, they rode among the steeps, till 
in a dark forest they rested till the morning light, 
four hundred thousand couching there. 

When the day dawned, the emperor scanned his 
host, and asked, " To whom shall I trust the rear ? " 
and Ganelon replied : " You have no knight like my 
step-son Roland, let him keep the rear." The em- 
peror heard him with moody brow, but Roland 
begged for the post, and the emperor sadly yielded. 



178 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Roland asked his uncle to yield him his own bow ; 
the emperor reached it forth and Roland received it. 
He donned his peerless armor, laced his helmet, and 
girt on Durindana, his famous sword, and mounting 
Veillantif, his favorite steed, he grasped his lance, with 
its white pennon with edges of gold and fringe that 
fell down to the handle. Twenty thousand Franks 
followed him, among them the faithful Olivier. 

Through Roncesvalles the march began, fearing 
nothing, for Roland was there to guard the rear. 
The Franks wound through the mountains dark and 
steep, and thought gladly of their homes and their 
wives, as they looked down on the fields of Gascony. 
But Charlemagne wept for Roland left behind. 

Before three suns were set King Marsillius had 
mustered four hundred thousand Saracens, under his 
nephew and eleven barons, among them the Mis- 
creant Monarch of Barbary, Turgis, Count of Tortosa, 
a Mauritanian Almanzor and the rest. One of them 
said : " Fear nothing, Peter of Rome is no match for 
Mohammed." They all donned their hauberks of 
Saracen mould, their helmets made in Saragossa, 
their swords of steel, their bright lances with pen- 
nons of of azure, red, and white. They leaped upon 
their chargers, and their resplendent arms reflected 
the bright sunshine. A thousand clarions sounded, 
so loud that the Franks could hear it. 

" Sir comrade," " said Olivier, I trow there is a 
battle at hand." " God grant it may be so," replied 
brave Roland. 

Sir Olivier climbed a peak from which he could 
look far upon the Spanish realm. When he came 



THE SONG OF ROLAND. 1 79 

* 

down, he said : " I have seen the Paynim ; never such 
host on earth appeared. My lords of France, be 
God your stay, that you may not fall before them." 
Then all the Franks said: "Accursed be they who 
fly; not one of us shall blench." "'My comrade," 
said Olivier then to Roland, "sound upon your ivory 
horn, and Charlemagne will return with all the host." 
" I were mad," said Roland, " to do the deed. My 
Durindana shall smite the heathen. It shall never 
be spoken of me in scorn that I blew one blast for 
heathen felons. 

Then daring Roland and wise Olivier awaited the 
foe. Archbishop Turpin blessed the host, and assailed 
the Franks as tjiey knelt on the ground, and then 
turned to face the heathen, with Roland at their 
head, upon his true charger Veillantif, joyous of 
visage and exceeding beautiful of frame. From all 
the Franks resounded their cry " Montjoie ! " and 
with rowels dashed in their coursers' side they proudly 
rode to meet the foe. Their Paynim foes too were 
fearless, and thus they closed. 

It was a fearful struggle. Each Paynim knight 
attacked one of the Christian leaders, and all fought 
with fiercest bravery. Roland used his lance in fif- 
teen encounters, and when it broke, he grasped in 
hand his Durindana, making fell havoc of the foe till 
the field flowed with the bright blood shed. Olivier 
too wielded his blade with fearful effect, and around 
them the cry "Montjoie ! " arose. 

Now a wondrous storm passed over France with 
thunder and whirlwind. There was an earthquake, 
and at high noon it was dark, save for the lightning 



ISO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

flashes in the cloven sky. A mighty fear came on 
all, and they said, " The end of the world is near." 
They spake idly, for it was the great lament for 
Roland's death. 

The Franks fought with such prowess that of a 
hundred thousand Saracens but one escaped. King 
Margaris fled alone from the field, but in no dis- 
grace, for he was wounded in four places, to tell 
King Marsillius what had chanced that day. He 
fell at the feet of the king, and said : " Ride, sire, 
ride ; you will find the Franks in an evil plight, it 
were easy now to crush them." And with a mighty 
battalion the king sped through the valley. When 
the Franks saw them, they cried, " This is the treach- 
ery of Ganelon ! " Proudly they mounted, and 
spurred, like chafing lions, to meet the foe anew. 
Among them came the Saracen Valdabrun, who 
owned galleys upon the sea, and was lord of all the 
mariners. He had erst falsely won Jerusalem and 
profaned the temple of Solomon. He struck and 
slew Duke Samson, one of Roland's trustiest knights ; 
and when Roland heard this, he raised aloft Durin- 
dana, and smote with uncontrolled passion on the 
heathen's helmet with its jewelled crown, down 
through head, and cuirass, and body, and down 
through the saddle embossed with gold, until the 
steel was buried in the charger's flank. " A fearful 
stroke ! " said the heathen crew. 

Archbishop Turpin fought gallantly among the 
rest ; never has priest sung mass, who has done such 
feats of his body. 

So great was the carnage that at length the 



THE SONG OF ROLAND. l8l 

heathen turned to fly. The Saracens cried : " May ill 
betide the hour we came on this fatal track ! " But 
King Marsillius urged them to continue the battle 
until Roland should be slain. The Saracens lay dead 
by the hundred, yet the fight kept on till all the cava- 
liers of the Franks were slain but sixty. God pre- 
served these that ere they should die they might 
sell their lives at the highest cost. 

Then at last Roland consented to sound his ivory 
horn. He sounded such a mighty strain that the 
bright blood rushed forth from his mouth and his 
temples burst. On and onward the blast was borne 
until far away it was heard by Charlemagne. " It is 
Roland's horn," said the emperor, "our men have 
battle on hand." " Battle," said Ganelon, " there is 
none. Ride onward, Sire, your mighty land is yet far 
away." A second and a third time Roland sounds 
his horn in anguish drear, and at last the king com- 
mands to sound the alarm. The barons leap on their 
steeds and speed back through the passes. Ah ! 
what availeth ! it is all too late. 

.In wrath the emperor had Ganelon bound and 
consigned to Besqua, chief of his kitchen train. Then 
full a hundred of kitchen valets, the worst and best, 
pressed round him. Each dealt him four cuffs of the 
fist, and beat him with rods and staves, then flung a 
chain about him and led him like a bear. 

The emperor and his train rode back to Roland, 
dark, vast, and high soared the summits, the waters 
poured down the valleys. The trumpets made answer 
to Roland's horn; the Franks were full of grief, 
beseeching God to let them stand beside Roland 



1 82 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

upon the field. Ah, timeless succor, and all in vain. 
Too late! 

Roland looked upon the lines of his slain warriors 
and wept, and then pressed again into the fight. The 
Franks struck like wrathful lions, but Marsillius bore 
himself braveiy, till his good right hand was severed 
by Durindana ; then he turned and fled with a hun- 
dred thousand of the heathen train. 

But though Marsillius fled, his uncle, the Algalif, 
was still there, lord of Ethiopia, accursed land. The 
black battalions he commanded, with large nostrils, 
and ears flattened, outnumbered fifty thousand spears. 
When Roland saw this abhorred race, more black 
than blackest ink, he said, " Now is the hour of our 
death close at hand ; fight, my Franks, to the last." 

The Algalif sate on a sorrel horse ; he smote Olivier 
in the back, and pressed his lance through the har- 
ness so the steel came out at the baron's breast. 
Olivier felt the deadly wound, yet he grasped his 
sword Hauteclere, and smote on the Algalif's crest 
of gold, cleaving his head to the teeth. 

Olivier knew himself hurt to death, yet he shouted 
" Montjoie ! " shrill and clear, and then called to 
Roland to draw near to him. 

Roland looked Olivier in the face. He was ghastly 
pale and the bright blood flowed forth from the 
wound. " Oh God ! " said Roland, " is this the end 
of all thy prowess ? " At the words he fainted upon 
his steed. There were Roland swooning upon his 
charger, and Olivier smitten with his death wound. 

Olivier's eyes were dimmed with bleeding, and 
seeing nothing he smote a fierce blow upon his com- 



THE SONG OF ROLAND. 1 83 

rade's helmet which passed no further, not piercing 
his head. Roland marvelled at the blow, and said 
softly : " It is I, Roland, who loves thee so dear ; thou 
hast no quarrel to seek with me?" Olivier answered: 
" I hear thee speak, but see thee not. God seeth thee. 
Have I struck thee, my brother ? Oh, forgive it me ! " 

" I am not hurt Olivier, and in the sight of God, I 
forgive thee." And in love like this was their part- 
ing made. 

Olivier lay upon the ground and cried aloud his 
Mea culpa, prayed God to grant that he might share 
Paradise, prayed God to bless King Charlemagne and 
France, and over all others, Roland. Then his heart 
sank, his head bowed, and stretched at his length upon 
the earth, Sir Olivier passed away. 

Roland was left alone to weep. " Ah friend," he 
said, "since thou art dead, to live is pain." He 
swooned again upon his horse Veillantif, but his 
golden stirrups held him fast in the saddle. 

When his senses were restored he saw what ruin 
lay around him. All his Franks had perished save 
two, the archbishop, and Walter of Hum, the latter 
wounded and dying fast. Yet the three surviving 
Franks fought hotly. Roland left not one of a score 
alive, Walter slew six, five were slain by the arch- 
bishop. The heathen pour down upon them. A 
thousand Saracens are struck from their steeds, yet 
forty thousand remain in the saddle. 

Walter was slain and the steed of the archbishop 
dropped dead. Turpin fell to the ground with four 
lance wounds in him, but he sprang up, and con- 
tinued to deal about him deadly blows. 



184 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Roland fought on, his body burning and bathed in 
sweat, a mighty pain in his brow, since his temple 
had burst when he sounded his horn ; yet he lifted 
his horn once more, and blew a faint and feeble 
note. 

The emperor listened and stood still. "That," he 
said, " is the blast of a dying man. Sound every 
trump our ranks possess." 

Sixty thousand clarions pealed forth, the hills 
echoed, the vales replied. The heathen cried, 
" Charlemagne is at hand ! " and they gathered them- 
selves once more to slay Roland. 

When Roland saw them, he spurred Veillantif 
towards them, with Archbishop Turpin at his side. 
" Let us flee ! " said the heathen, " those are the 
trumpets of France we hear." They withdrew to a 
distance, and held aloof, but thence hurled their 
missiles, javelin, barb, and arrow. Roland's buckler 
was torn, his cuirass broken, Veillantif bled from 
thirty wounds, and fell dead at last. Then the 
heathen vanished from the field, and left Roland, on 
foot, alone. 

He turned to succor Turpin, who lay stretched on 
the sward. " Mea culpa" he called out, raised his 
hands to heaven, and died. Roland took the fair 
white hands, crossed and clasped them upon his 
breast, and was now alone upon the field. 

Roland felt that his death was near, and stretched 
himself upon the green grass. A Saracen who saw 
him sought to take away his Durindana, but the 
hero roused himself and smote him on the crest, 
shattering bone and skull with his horn. Then, that 



THE SONG OF ROLAND. 1 85 

no other should ever wield his famous sword, he 
strove to break it by smiting ten grievous blows 
upon a dark brown rock. The breach in the stone 
he made is still there, but the steel was not broken, 
nor the grain notched. 

Then Roland felt his hour was at hand. He beat 
upon his breast and confessed his sins, and raised 
his glove to heaven in sign of penance. His resting- 
place was beneath a pine ; he had turned his face to 
the land of Spain. Many a thought rose upon his 
memory of the lands he had won, the fields he had 
fought, of his gentle France, his kin and friends, and 
his beloved and loving king. He raised his right- 
hand glove, and St. Gabriel took the gift from his 
hand. Then drooped his head upon his breast, and 
he slept with clasped hands the sleep of death. God 
from on high sent down to him one of his angels, 
Saint Michael, and with him came Gabriel, and they 
bore his soul with them back to Paradise. 

There is another part to tell of the reprisals, but 
we will leave Roland here. Charlemagne's grief is 
dwelt upon, and the chastisement he gave to the 
Saracens, and his return to France, where the be- 
trothed of Roland came to him to demand her love. 
When she learned that he was dead she too fell at 
the feet of Charlemagne and died. A terrible punish- 
ment was dealt to Ganelon ; he was bound to four 
wild horses and torn asunder. 

The Queen of the Saracens, a captive in the train 
of the emperor was baptized as a Christian. When 
the emperor had done all he could for justice, his 



i86 



THE STORY OF SPA IX 



wrath subsided. Then Saint Gabriel came to him 
to say that he was called by God to bring relief to a 
Christian king besieged by heathen. 

Fain would Charles such task decline. 
" God ! what a life of toil is mine ! " 
He wept ; his hoary beard he wrung. 

So ends the lay. 





CHAPTER XIII. 

ALMORAVIDES. — ALMOHADES. 

AFTER the fall of the Caliphate of Cordova, the 
local governors of cities took upon themselves an in- 
dependent power, and often assumed the title of 
kings, boasting each of a brief authority, and declar- 
ing war upon each other upon slight pretence. These 
numerous small kings agreed on one subject only, 
that of renouncing all allegiance to the former seat 
of empire. 

This broken state of things among the Moslems 
gave a fair opportunity to the Christians to regain 
something of their ancient power in Spain. The 
descendants of the Goths, of whom we shall hear 
more by and by, asserted themselves especially in 
the northern provinces. Among them the king of 
Leon, Alfonso VI., was now able to besiege Toledo, 
which after three years of resistance was compelled 
to capitulate, and Alfonso triumphantly entered the 
ancient capital of the Goths, which had remained in 
the power of the Saracens for nearly four centuries. 

Alfonso continued his successes by the capture 
of many other strongholds of the Mohammedans, 
so that their chiefs, alarmed, assembled together to 
confer upon the situation. 

187 



1 88 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

In this council an appeal was proposed to the 
celebrated African conqueror, Yussef ben Taxfin, 
and the proposal was received with general applause, 
except by the Governor of Malaga, who exclaimed: 

" What ! Call in the aid of the terrible Almora- 
vides ! Do not you know that these fierce inhabi- 
tants of the desert are more like their native tigers 
than men ? Suffer them not, I beseech you, to enter 
the fertile plains of Andalusia and Granada ! They 
might break for us the sceptre of iron which Alfonso 
holds over us, but we should wear under them the 
chains of a worse slavery ! " 

This was the aged Zagat who said this, but he was 
overruled. " Any thing," they said, " rather than 
that Andalusia should become the prey of the Chris- 
tians. We would rather become humble shepherds, 
or drive the camels of the Yussef, than reign depen- 
dent on these dogs of Christians." 

" May Allah then protect us ! " said the aged 
Zagat, thus silenced. 

Beyond the chains of Mount Atlas, in the deserts 
of Northern Africa, from time immemorial, had 
dwelt two tribes of Arabian descent. Their lives 
were passed in perfect freedom under their tents ; 
their only possessions were their herds and camels. 

An Arab of one of these tribes, whose name was 
Yahia ben Ibrahim, on his return from the pilgrim- 
age to Mecca, met a famous alfaqui, originally of 
Fez. Being questioned by the alfaqui as to the re- 
ligion and manners of his countrymen, Yahia replied 
that they were sunk in ignorance and lost to all 
knowledge of the world, but that they were strangers 



A LMORA VIDES. —A LMOHA DES. 1 89 

also to cruelty, and were amenable to instruction. 
This alfaqui and his friends became enough interested 
in this remote tribe to wish to disturb their ignorant 
bliss, and one of their disciples, one Abdallah ben 
Yassim, fired with missionary zeal, was induced to 
go back with Yahia. 

Abdallah was one of those ruling- minds, which, 
fortunately for the peace of society, nature seldom 
produces. His superior knowledge so won the devo- 
tion of the tribe to which Yahia brought him, that 
he soon conceived the idea of making himself king 
over them, and to enlarge his kingdom he prevailed 
upon his dutiful disciples to make war upon the 
neighboring tribe, which also until now had dwelt in 
happy ignorance. His plea was that of diffusing the 
true religion and useful knowledge. The tribe, thus 
attacked in the cause of progress, submitted. Ab- 
dallah gave to his new subjects the name of Murabi- 
tins, or Almoravides, which means " Religious Peo- 
ple," or men consecrated to the service of God. 

The whole surrounding country was gradually 
subdued by this new apostle, and his authority was 
acknowledged over a region large enough to make a 
respectable kingdom, but he left the temporal power 
nominally in the hands of the emir he found exercis- 
ing it, and allowed it to go to his successor, whose 
power and fame spread far and wide, thanks to the 
counsels and teachings of the progressive Abdallah. 

This emir, Abu Bekir, exceeded the instructions of 
his spiritual guide so far as to extend his dominion 
by conquest and plunder. He spread his territory 
beyond the chain of mountains, even to the shores 



190 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

of the sea, and even laid the foundations for a great 
city, his capital, which was Morocco. Whilst in the 
middle of his work upon the city he had to go back 
over the mountains to suppress a quarrel between 
his different tribes ; he left the superintendence of 
his buildings and the command of his army during 
his absence to his cousin, Yussef ben Taxfin. This 
cousin, it appears, was the greater man, whose glory, 
by gradual steps was prepared by the camel driver, 
the alfaqui, the apostle, and the chief. 

Yussef, we are told, was noble of stature, and tall, 
his countenance prepossessing, his eyes dark and 
piercing, his beard long, his tone of voice harmoni- 
ous, his frame strong, robust, and familiar with 
fatigue. His mind corresponded with his outward 
appearance, for his generosity, his care of the poor, 
his sobriety, his justice, his religious zeal, rendered 
him the admiration of strangers and the love of his 
own people. 

In this catalogue of his virtues, gratitude, honor, 
and good faith must be omitted, for scarcely had his 
kinsman left the city than Yussef set himself to win- 
ning away from him the affections of his subjects. 
He began by marrying the beautiful Zainab, sister 
of Abu Bekir ; then, being all in the family, he went 
on with the magnificent city of Morocco, and there 
established the seat of his empire. He encouraged 
people of other nations to settle there, and soon filled 
it with a prosperous population, out of which he 
built up an army which reached the number of one 
hundred thousand men. 

All this time poor old Abu Bekir was away on the 



ALMORA VIDES.—ALMOHADES. 1 9 1 

other side of the mountains reconciling his hostile 
tribes. No telegram reported the state of things at 
home. No chance newspaper came under his eye, 
nor did the modern interviewer call to inquire his 
impressions on losing an empire. He went on quietly 
soothing his tribes, until he had brought them to his 
mind, and then he returned from the desert and en- 
camped in his old city of Agmat, where he used to 
live before Morocco was thought of. Here he learned 
for the first time what had been going on in his ab- 
sence ; to his mortification, his own horsemen, who 
went on to Morocco to find out all about it, came 
back loud in the praises of Yussef, whose liberality to 
his army every one was talking about. 

Abu Bekir, at a loss to know what would happen 
next, invited an interview with his cousin. The two 
chiefs met about half way between Morocco and 
Agmat, and after a formal salutation, took their 
seats on the same carpet. It was an awkward scene 
for Abu Bekir, but his visitor seemed not to find it 
so. The grandeur which surrounded Yussef, his 
formidable guard, and the alacrity with which he was 
obeyed, prevented the poor emir from even making 
the remark that he thought it was about time he 
should take the kingdom back into his own hand. 
Yussef, on his side, made no such suggestion, but 
smoked his pipe and sipped his coffee just as if he 
had nothing upon his mind. So Abu Bekir meekly 
said that he had long given up the thoughts of em- 
pire, and that his only wish was to pass the remainder 
of his days in the desert, which Yussef cordially 
approved, accepting without hesitation the continued 



1 92 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

care of the kingdom. The sheiks and walis were 
instantly summoned to witness the abdication of the 
emir. Yussef sent him a magnificent present the 
next day, and indeed kept up this custom every 
year till he died ; and Abu Bekir returned to his 
desert sooner than he had expected. 

Yussef now assumed the title of Nazaravin, or de- 
fender of the faith, and chief of the already large 
band of the Almoravides. His power was solid, he 
was in peaceful possession of a- large empire, when 
letters from the Spanish Moslems reached him ask- 
ing his aid against the Christians. Yussef consented, 
and, arming a vast body of soldiers, set forth for 
Spain. 

Alfonso was besieging Saragossa when intelli- 
gence reached him of Yussef's disembarkation. He 
advanced towards Andalusia with all the forces he 
could muster. 

Yussef summoned the Christian king by letter 
either to embrace the faith of the prophet, to con- 
sent to pay him annual tribute, or to prepare for im- 
mediate battle. 

The indignant Alfonso trampled the letter under 
foot, and at the same time said to the messenger who 
brought it : 

" Tell thy master what thou hast seen ! Tell him 
also not to hide himself during the action ; let him 
meet me face to face." 

The two armies engaged on the thirteenth day of 
the moon Regeb, A. H. 479. This is the same as our 
October 23, 1086. The Christians fought with des- 
perate valor, but Alfonso was compelled to retreat. 



ALMORA VIDES.—ALMOHABES. 1 93 

This victory, however, had no especial result, other 
than to give Yussef a foothold on the Peninsula. His 
victories over the Christians did not gain much for 
the Mohammedan princes of Spain, but, in fulfilment 
of the fears of the wisest among them, Yussef, one 
by one, subdued all the princes of Andalusia. Among 
them was Mohammed, from whom came the original 
proposal to invite the African chieftain into Spain. 
Mohammed and his family were thrown into prison 
until a ship was prepared to carry them in exile into 
Africa. Surrounded by the best beloved of his 
wives, his daughters, and his four surviving sons, his 
hands loaded with chains, he wept as the ship that 
bore them moved away from the shores of Spain. 
" It is the will of Allah," said this true Moslem ; 
" my children, let us learn to support our lot with 
resignation." 

The royal party were confined in a fortress at 
Agmat. We are told that a compassionate poet 
presented the fallen king with a copy of verses de- 
ploring his misfortunes, and that he rewarded the 
author with thirty-six pieces of gold, which was the 
only money he had left. 

His future life was passed in penury — his daugh- 
ters earned his living and their own by the labor of 
their hands. 

Thus ended the petty kingdoms of Andalusia, after 
a stormy existence of less than a century, and now 
began the dynasty of the ALMORAVIDES or RELI- 
GIOUS People. 

Yussef was more interested in his great capital, 
Morocco, than in his new possessions in the Penin- 



194 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

sula, but he came to Cordova, which he wished to 
honor as their chief city, as the Omeyyas had done, 
and there he convoked the sheiks and walis, and 
caused his son Ali to be proclaimed heir to hrs-vast 
empire. The instructions which he gave the young 
prince were full of wisdom : to preserve his frontier 
fortresses well guarded ; to employ the Andalusians 
chiefly against the Christians, because they under- 
stood, better than the Africans, the enemy's method 
of warfare ; to pay his troops punctually, to honor all 
Moslems, and to exercise clemency, were among the 
admonitions which the prince received from his 
father. 

Yussef soon afterwards returned to Morocco, 
where he died on the third day of the moon Muhar- 
ram, A. H. 500, having lived one hundred Arabian 
or lunar years, or about ninety-seven of the Christian 
or solar calendar. 

The empire of, the Almoravides had but a brief 
duration in Spain. It was never agreeable to the 
Spanish Arabs, whose manners, from their contact 
with the Christians were refined and superior to 
those of the Africans, while the savages from the 
desert looked with contempt upon the effeminate 
citizens of the Peninsula. The excesses of Ali's 
barbarian guard, which consisted in laying waste 
the gardens, forcibly entering the houses, and seizing 
the property of the people of Cordova, were unre- 
strained .by the local authorities, and an open revolt 
was the consequence. Ali was obliged to listen to 
their demands, and to restrain the insubordination 
of his guards, but ill feeling continued to prevail. 



ALMORAVIDES.—ALMOHADES. 1 95 

The Christians were always in arms, and increasing 
in power, for Saragossa had by this time fallen into 
their hands, and the north of Spain was already free 
from Moslem domination. 

The cause, however, which was destined to over- 
throw the dynasty of the Almoravides, at the same 
time that it changed the whole face of Western 
Africa and Southern Spain, originated, like the pow- 
er of Yussef ben Taxfin, in the deserts bordering on 
Mount Atlas. 

Mohammed ben Abdallah (another Mohammed !) 
was the son of a lamp-lighter in the Mosque of Cor- 
dova. He had great curiosity, and an insatiable 
thirst for knowledge. After studying for some years 
in the schools of his native city, he persuaded the 
lamp-lighter to let him journey to Bagdad, where he 
continued his studies under the celebrated doctors 
of that capital of the Moslem world. 

Of these doctors, none was more famous than Abu 
Hamid Algazali, and none more free in the expres- 
sion of his sentiments, which were bold and radical, 
and, in the opinion of conservatives, dangerous to the 
faith of Islam. He had written a book on the resur- 
rection of science and natural law, which the Cadi 
of Cordova had been the first to condemn. Ali 
himself approved the condemnation, all the copies 
of the book which could be found were seized and 
burnt in the public square. 

When Mohammed ben Abdallah had reached Bag- 
dad, and taken his seat in the school of Algazali, the 
first question asked him, very naturally, was not 
exactly, 



lg6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

" What on earth tempted you to come here ? " but 
" Had you heard of my writings in your native 
city? " And when he said he had done so, still 
more naturally he was asked how they were received 
there, and he was obliged to confess that they had 
been all burned in the public square by the orders 
of the cadi, and the approval of the king. 

Algazali turned pale, not perceiving that this was 
as good a form of advertising as he could have 
desired for his work. He demanded the vengeance 
of Heaven upon his impious judges, and on the 
monarch who had sanctioned the deed. 

" Pray Allah, also," said Mohammed, the son of 
the lamp-lighter, " that I may be the instrument of 
thy vengeance." Algazali added this prayer to the 
other. 

Mohammed acquired, with ardor and diligence, all 
the views of his master Algazali, and after he had 
fully learned them wandered from place to place 
zealously preaching these doctrines. He fell in with 
a youth named Abdelmumen, who decided to share 
his fortunes, and together they arrived in Morocco. 

One day they entered the grand mosque, and 
Mohammed immediately possessed himself of the 
most prominent place. He was informed that those 
seats were reserved for the Prince of the Faithful. 
"The temples of Allah belong to Allah, and to Allah 
alone ! " was the reply of the bold intruder, who then, 
to the surprise of the audience, repeated the whole 
chapter of the Koran, of which this is the opening 
sentence. 

A few minutes after, Ali himself entered, and all 



ALMORAVIDES.—ALMOHADES. 1 97 

as usual rose to salute him, but Mohammed did not 
deign even to cast a glance on this dreaded chief of 
a great empire. When the service was over he ap- 
proached the sovereign and said in a loud voice : 

" Provide a remedy for the afflictions of thy peo- 
ple ! One day Allah will require of thee an ac- 
count ! " 

The prince, who regarded him as a santon or re- 
ligiously inspired person, a class much indulged in 
Moslem states, and privileged to utter disagreeable 
truths, instead of ordering his head off at once, 
merely asked what he could do for him. 

" Nothing which this world can give," he gravely 
replied ; " my mission is to preach reformation and 
to correct abuses." 

Ali was struck by these words, and allowed him to 
follow his vocation, not expecting any serious re- 
results," and trusting in the good sense of the peo- 
ple. But his fanatic discourses so much excited the 
populace, that he was ordered to leave Morocco, and, 
building a hut for himself among the graves just out- 
side the city, he preached vehemently to crowds who 
came out to listen to him, denouncing the impiety of 
the Almoravides, and the coming of the great Mahdi, 
who shall teach all men the right way and cause vir- 
tue and happiness to reign over the whole earth. At 
first he carefully refrained from acknowledging 
himself to be this mighty prophet, but afterwards 
accepted it, assumed the high title of MAHDI, and 
proclaimed himself the founder of a new people. 
Followers flocked to his standard, and Ali was 
forced to march against the prophet, who en- 



198 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

trenched himself with a powerful army among the 
strongholds of the Atlas mountains. The followers 
of Mohammed called themselves Almohades — that 
is to say, followers of one God. They were, in fact 
Unitarians ; for their principal pretence was to extir- 
pate alike idolaters who recognized several gods and 
those Christians who worship Three Persons in one 
God. 

Mohammed entrenched himself in a stronghold 
among the mountains, where his people maintained 
themselves by plundering the neighborhood. The 
suffering people complained to Ali, who intercepted 
as well as he could by troops, the inroads of these 
holy banditti, but he had to sustain a siege in Mo- 
rocco, which was soon invested with vigor by the 
Almohades. 

The affairs of the Almoravides were meantime 
growing daily worse in Spain, where the Christians 
openly defied their force, so that, overcome by grief 
and anxiety, Ali died at Morocco, leaving his son, 
Taxfin ben Ali, to fight it out with all his enemies. 

Meanwhile the great Mahdi died, too, in the 
midst of his successes, before the walls of Morocco. 
He conferred all his powers upon his faithful Abdel- 
mumen, and, as a last gift, presented him with the 
book containing the tenets of his faith, a volume 
which he had received from Algazali. 

Abdelmumen, who now combined the offices of 
general of the troops and Grand Mahdi, made a 
vigorous attack upon the new emperor. Taxfin 
saw that his only hope of safety lay in escaping 
to Spain. One night he resolved to make a des- 



ALMORA VIBES.— ALMOHADES. 1 99 

perate effort to gain the port where his vessels 
were riding at anchor. Unfortunately he missed 
his way. The mule, on which he was riding, ter- 
rified by the sound of the waves, plunged head- 
long over a precipice, where, the next morning, the 
mangled corpse of the emperor was found upon the 
beach. 

Morocco still remained in the power of the Almo- 
ravides, though the siege was prosecuted with vigor. 
It was now under the command of Ibrahim, the 
young son of the late emperor, who assumed the 
title. The city had to surrender, and Abdelmumen 
when he saw the youth of the captured monarch, 
showed signs of pity for him as he knelt and beg- 
ged for his life. 

" Wretch ! " cried one of the captured sheiks of the 
Almoravides to the boy, " why add shame to misfor- 
tune? Art thou kneeling, as if to a father, before 
a wild beast, who lives only on blood ! " 

This irritated the prophet, and, at the same time, 
one of his own generals exclaimed : 

" Wilt thou spare the cub of the lion, who one day 
may devour us all ? " 

Ibrahim's fate was sealed. Not only was he exe- 
cuted, but a general massacre of all the inhabitants 
of Morocco was ordered. The few who remained 
were sold as slaves, the mosques were destroyed, and 
the tribes of the desert were called to repeople the 
solitary streets of the splendid capital of the Almora- 
vides. 

The Almohades, now victorious in Africa, pro- 
claimed their emperor Abdelmumen as sovereign of 



200 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

all Mohammedan Spain, which they retained with 
various fortunes in their wars against the Christians 
under several successive emperors, until the begin- 
ning of the thirteenth century, when they in turn 
suffered a defeat at the great battle of Navas de 
Tolosa, which gave a permanent ascendancy to the 
Christian arms. 

The reigning emperor had collected for a whole year 
such an immense army that two months were neces- 
sary to convey it across the straits from Africa into 
Spain. All Christian Europe was filled with alarm. 
The Pope proclaimed a crusade to Spain. The dif- 
ferent kings of Christian Spain, Arragon, Castile, and 
Navarre, united to repel the common danger, and 
great numbers of volunteers from Portugal and 
Southern France hastened to Toledo, where was 
held a fast, with prayers and processions, to avert 
from Christendom the greatest danger that had 
threatened it since the famous victory of Charles 
Martel on the plains "of Poictiers. 

On July 12, 12 12, the crusaders reached the 
mountain chain which divides New Castile from 
Andalusia. Their king was Alfonso IX. of Castile, 
who commanded the immense Christian army in 
person. They found the passes and summits of the 
mountains occupied by the Almohades, and were at 
a loss how to proceed. Just then a shepherd entered 
the camp of Alfonso, and proposed to conduct the 
army, by a path unknown and invisible to the out- 
posts of the enemy, to the summit of the chain. 
They silently ascended, and entrenched themselves 
on a level plain large enough to contain all the 



A LMORA VIDE S. —A LMOHA DES. 201 

troops. Below them was stretched the army of the 
Moslems, whose surprise was great to perceive the 
heights above them occupied by the crusaders. 

On the third day the Christians descended to the 
plains of Tolosa. The struggle was terrific, but the 
Moslems at last fled. 

Seeing the total destruction or flight of his vast 
host, Mohammed, the African emperor, sorrowfully 
exclaimed : 

"Allah alone is just and powerful; the devil is 
false and wicked ! " 

Just then came up to him Alarab, leading by the 
head a strong but nimble mule. 

" Prince of the Faithful," said the African, " how 
long wilt thou remain here ? Dost thou not perceive 
that thy Moslems flee ? The will of Allah be done. 
Mount this mule, which is fleeter than the wind of 
heaven, or even the arrow which strikes it ; never 
yet did she fail her rider. Away ! away ! for on thy 
safety depends that of us all ! " 

Mohammed mounted the beast, and soon out- 
stripped not only the pursuers but the fugitives. 

Alfonso's report of this battle was that one hun- 
dred and eighty-five thousand infidels perished, and 
only five-and-twenty Spaniards. Without literally 
accepting this, it may be admitted as a glorious 
victory for the Christian arms. 

This was the last attempt of any magnitude which 
the Moslems made to preserve Andalusia. The 
Christians all over Spain were growing more and 
more powerful as they united their several small 
kingdoms, and combined on the common ground of 



202 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



ejecting the misbelievers from the Peninsula. Help 
from Africa could no longer be expected, even were 
it to be desired, for the empire of the Almohades 
was at its last gasp. 

In this deplorable situation the followers of the 
prophet turned to Mohammed ben Alhamar, who, of 
all the aspirants to power, had shown himself the 
most able to rule. He fixed his court in Granada, and 
there established the only state which survived the 
wreck of the African empire. Here, for more than 
two centuries and a half, the Moslems withstood the 
hostile attacks of their Christian neighbors. 














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CHAPTER XIV. 

THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 

The Moors, though as a whole making a nation, 
preserved the patriarchal customs of their ancestors, 
the Arabs. Each family formed a large tribe, not 
confounded with any other, more or less power- 
ful in numbers, wealth, and possession of slaves, 
within which the united members regarded each 
other as brothers, marched together to battle, taking 
always the same side in combat, mutually supporting 
each other, and never separating their fortunes, their 
interests, or their prejudices, whether for love or 
hate. 

Among these tribes, the most celebrated in tra- 
dition and romance was the family of the Abencer- 
rages, descended from ancient kings in Arabia. The 
very existence of this tribe is now doubted by his- 
torians, and the legends concerning their prowess 
are set down as idle tales, but they form so import- 
ant, and, at least, so picturesque, a part of the story, 
of Granada, that they cannot well be left out here. 
Some foundation must have existed for the legends 
of their splendor and daring which remain floating 
about the ruins of the Alhambra. 

The qualities of the princes of the Abencerrages 

203 



204 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

were of the highest sort. Invincible in battle, they 
were mild and merciful after victory, while their 
graces and gifts made them the ornament of the 
Moorish court. They were respected by the Spaniards, 
whose esteem they won by the kindness they showed 
to the Christian captives. Their immense wealth 
was used for the benefit of the poor and suffering. 
In the tournaments of the Moorish court, in games 
of skill and chance, the prizes fell to the chiefs of 
the Abencerrages. It was the boast of the race that 
it had never been disgraced by a coward, a faithless 
friend, an inconstant husband, or a perfidious lover. 

The rivals of this glorious family were the Zegris, 
descendants of the kings of Fez. They also were of 
great distinction. Their valor had time and again 
carried fire and the sword into the dominions of 
Castile, hundreds of times their victorious hands 
had decorated the mosques with banners snatched 
from the enemy. But these heroic exploits were 
dishonored by the prevailing trait of the Zegris, 
a savage thirst for blood. A Zegri was never known 
to make a captive; every victim perished on the 
spot by sabre ; neither friendship nor love soft- 
ened their ferocity. They regarded all sensibility as 
weakness, and looked with contempt on the graces 
of the court, exchanges of civility, or encounters of 
repartee. They were fierce and proud, and loved 
only the field of battle ; all they knew was how to 
fight and conquer, and they despised all other arts. 

An intense jealousy existed through generations 
between the rival Zegris and Abencerrages, and 
towards the end of the Moorish kingdom of Granada 



THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 20$ 

this had increased so much that only the personal 
authority of the sovereign could restrain an outburst. 
The principal families of Granada joined either the 




----- "c~-£SS^.~-;->~.~"-- 



THE GATE OF JUSTICE. ALHAMBRA. 

one side or the other; and other tribes, more ob- 
scure, had followed this example, so that the whole 
country was divided into two opposing parties. 
The last king of Granada, according to the legend, 



2o6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

inclined towards the noble Abencerrages, with whose 
fine qualities he was able to sympathize ; but in 
order to appease the discontent of the Zegris, he 
had married a maiden of their tribe. This was Aixa, 
a princess beautiful, but hardened by the want of 
sensibility and the inexorable pride of her race. So 
little did her society satisfy the mind and heart of 
the king, that he fell in love with a Spanish captive ; 
and the tenets of his religion did not prevent him 
from making her also his wife. 

This caused intense jealousy at the court. The 
Zegri swore upon the side of the princess who 
belonged to their tribe ; and her son, the young 
prince, and heir to the throne, espoused their cause 
in their quarrels with the Abencerrages, while this 
large family ranged themselves on the side of the 
Spanish princess. 

To divert the minds of his people from this dis- 
sension and bitterness, the king encouraged the 
games and exhibitions of skill, for which the Moors, 
in all time, had been distinguished. 

A romance writer has given a fanciful description 
of the celebration of a wedding in the Moorish court: 

" All the warriors, of whatever tribe, prepared 
themselves for the occasion by lavishing their treas- 
ure on the richness of their armor and the mag- 
nificence of their coursers. The beauties of the 
court sent ribbons, scarfs, devices to their lovers to 
stimulate them to exertion, and decked themselves 
in their fairest costumes and richest jewels. 

"As soon as the sun had gilded the summit of the 
palace of Granada, all the people began to gather in 



THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 2QJ 

the great plaza of the city, the Vivarambla, which 
was provided with rows of seats like an amphitheatre, 
to contain the vast assemblage. 

" In the middle of the great enclosure, which could 
easily contain twenty thousand warriors in battle 
array, was a palm-tree, whose trunk was of bronze, 
and whose leaves were all of gold. Upon one of the 
long palm leaves a silver dove was suspended, which 
pulled down the branch by its weight. This dove 
held in its beak a ring, which was the object of the 
contest ; and the bird was so constructed by the skill 
of the Moorish workman, that as soon as a ring was 
won by the prowess of a knight, another ring im- 
mediately came out of the beak of the dove to take 
its place. 

" Below the palm-tree was an enclosure reserved 
for the judges, and there were also placed musical 
instruments to announce victory. 

" Balconies, covered with precious stuffs, and in 
the middle a magnificent dais, were destined for the 
king, with his family and the court ; while every 
window of the immense square, ornamented with 
garlands, was crowded with the fairest of Moorish 
maidens. 

" When the judges were all in their places, the 
king arrived in all pomp and splendor, leading the 
bride, in whose honor the occasion was made, re- 
splendent in diamonds. The court followed and 
surrounded him, and filled the balconies ; trumpets 
sounded from the four barriers to announce the com- 
batants. 

" First entered the Abencerrages, dressed in blue 



208 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

tunics embroidered with silver and pearls, mounted 
on white coursers, whose harness was covered with 
sapphires. Blue was the favorite color of the 
Abencerrages, and in their turbans they wore aigrettes 
of that color. Upon their shields was a lion led by 
a shepherdess, with an Arabic motto, the celebrated 
device of their tribe, which means ' Gentleness and 
Force.' All these warriors were in their first bloom 
of youth, handsome, brilliant, radiant with hope. 
They advanced proudly, but with gracious mien, to 
take their places in their quadrille. 

*' Next came the Zegris. These wore green tunics 
embroidered with gold. Their turbans were decked 
with aigrettes of black, the color of their family. 
Their horses were almost covered with broad trap- 
pings studded with emeralds. They followed, with 
haughty glances and heads thrown back, their re- 
doubtable leader Ali, who bore upon his shield, as 
did they all, the device of a scimetar dripping with 
blood, and the motto ' This is my Law.' 

'' The two other quadrilles were occupied by two 
important tribes. One of them, the Alabez, dressed 
in red, embroidered with silver, and mounted upon 
fsabe//e-colored horses, wore in their turbans the blue 
aigrette of the Abencerrages. The Gomeles, allies of 
the Zegris, wore their black aigrette in the turban. 
Their dress was a tunic of purple and gold. These 
four troops, one after the other, came first to salute 
the king, and then took their respective places. 

" Each one of these quadrilles could choose twelve 
cavaliers to ride for the ring. One failure alone took 
away the right to try again. A serpent aigrette of 



THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 200, 

diamonds was destined for the conqueror. Other 
gifts, less magnificent, were prepared to comfort the 
vanquished. 

" The signal given, the first rider to advance was 
from the blue ranks of the Abencerrages ; he sprang 
forward like an arrow from a bow, and caught upon 
the point of his lance the first ring and bore it back 
in triumph. Next came one of the Zegris, who, 
blinded by his rage against his skilful rival, missed 
the ring. He snapped his lance in two in his anger, 
and hid himself behind the cavaliers. Another 
Zegri wins the second ring ; for several courses 
success alternates between the two tribes. The place 
resounds with applause. Once, as a knight, by 
striking the silver dove, made the ring fly up in the 
air, another one, his rival, caught it before it reached 
the ground, upon the point of his lance. In the end, 
a young prince of the Abencerrages had won twenty 
rings, while no other single combatant had more 
than five. 

" After this came the game of wands. All the cava- 
liers, armed with light reeds instead of lances, rode 
against each other, breaking their fragile weapons 
against the shields, throwing them lightly in the air 
and catching them with wonderful skill, while their 
swift coursers turned, attacked, returned, with 
wonderful evolutions, under the control of their skil- 
ful riders. 

" The spectators watched the performance with 
keen enjoyment ; but the Zegris had planned a 
treachery. Under their glittering dress they wore 
coats of mail, and in the midst of the sport several 



2IO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

of them exchanged their light reeds for lances of 
iron. Several Abencerrages were wounded, a melee 
ensued. The place ran with blood, and the frightened 
witnesses fled." 

According to the same romance, Abenhamet, the 
flower of the youths of the Abencerrages, loved the 
fair Zoraide, who returned his love. But the prince 
royal saw her, admired her, and chose her for his 
own, and she was compelled to marry him, by threats 
against the life of her lover, if she refused. Aben- 
hamet was driven from the court. Disguised as a 
slave, with an Asiatic turban round his head, he re- 
turned to see, if possible, his beloved Zoraide. 

He arrives in Granada, climbs the steep ascent 
of the Alhambra, and wanders through the vast 
courts of the palace. 

Night had begun to cast its shadows on the earth. 
Zoraide, alone in the garden appropriated to her, 
was weeping for her love under a rose-tree. She 
knew nothing of his fate. She had not pronounced 
his name since her fatal marriage with the prince, but 
every evening she went to sit under this rose-tree, 
where, in happier times, she had passed many de- 
lightful moments with Abenhamet. 

Suddenly, in the midst of her weeping, the queen 
saw a slave approaching. Looking closely at him 
she recognized the Abencerrage ; she was about to 
scream, but the danger which threatened them both 
gave her prudence. 

The interview was brief and painful. Abenhamet 
seized the hand of the princess, then dropped it; she 
cried : ' Fly, fly, do not stay here to risk your life in 



THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 211 

this terrible place ; go, yet remember that every even- 
ing Zoraide weeps beneath this rose-tree. 

Even as she said these words, she thought she 
heard a noise behind the bush. She started up, 
forced Abenhamet to leave her, and herself hastened 
to her apartment, and stepped out upon the balcony 
overlooking the deep ravines of the Darro. There, 
in the pale moonlight, she listened, trembling. Silence 
reigned in the gardens, and she became calm. 

But the noise she had heard was no creation of 
her frightened fancy. Four Zegris had passed behind 
the rose-tree, and had seen and recognized the form 
of Abenhamet. Instantly they reported to the prince 
their discovery. In his rage, he was easily led by 
the perfidious Zegris to plan a terrible revenge upon 
all the family of the Abencerrages. 

Guards were sent everywhere throughout the Al- 
hambra to search for Abenhamet, and messengers 
of the king carried to every Abencerrage an order to 
come at once to the palace. 

One by one as they arrived, they were introduced 
into the Court of Lions ; as soon as they appeared 
they were seized, dragged to the alabaster basin of 
the fountain, and their heads cut off. Abenhamet 
was the first. He fell by the sword of the prince 
himself. 

Thirty-six young heroes were thus sacrificed, the 
whole of the noble family which had lavished its 
blood to protect the kingdom, and save its capital 
from the attacks of the Christians. One child alone 
who had accompanied its guardian to the Court of 
Lions, fled and reported the carnage to a troop of 



212 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Abencerrages who were coming to obey the order of 
the king. The alarm spread. The retainers of the 
tribe hastened, armed, to the palace. A fierce en- 
counter ensued. The Zegris, supported by the royal 
guard, overwhelmed the smaller number of their 
foes ; in spite of their reckless courage, these were 
forced, after a long contest, to retire. The small 
remnant who were not slain were driven out of the 
city, and these few, embittered against the ungrate- 
ful country which could thus abuse its defenders, 
withdrew from Granada, under oaths never to 
return to it. 

Such is one version of the destruction the Abencer- 
rages. The legend has so much credence that every 
visitor of the Alhambra is shown, in the lovely Court 
of Lions, the stains of the blood of the Abencerrages 
upon the edge of the alabaster basin. Yet the 
guide-book warns us that these marks are not those 
of blood, but ferruginous veins in the marble, and at 
the same time asserts that no Abencerrages ever ex- 
isted. 

In the historical account of the fall of Granada it 
is evident that internal dissension among the Moor- 
ish families made it easy for their enemies to effect 
their destruction, and the story of the Abencerrages 
illustrates these quarrels by its grains of truth mixed 
up with fable. 




CHAPTER XV. 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 



MOHAMMED BEN Alhamar became the founder of 
a celebrated kingdom. His qualities were of a high 
order, he was intrepid in Avar, but more inclined to 
peace, vigorous in pursuing justice, but mild and 
conciliating, possessing foresight and prudence, yet 
magnificent in his habits, fond of power, still more 
fond of popularity. These were all qualities likely to 
please the Andalusians ; they enabled him to piece 
together the fragments of the several shattered 
"kingdoms" of the Arabs there, and to make his 
own firm enough to last. 

The Moorish territory of Granada contained within 
its circuit, narrowed though it were from the broad 
extent once held by the powerful Arabs, all the 
physical resources of a great empire. Fertile valleys 
were intersected by mountains rich in minerals. Its 
fields, well watered, afforded pasturage to countless 
cattle, and its coasts commanded the commerce of 
the world. 

The beautiful city of Granada, its capital, over- 
looked the country from its lofty situation, upon 
four hills rising from a broad plain. In the days of 
the Moors it was surrounded by a wall flanked by a 

2:3 



214 TTTE STORY OF SPAIN. 

thousand towers, and held a vast population. At 
the summit of the loftiest hill was erected the royal 
fortress of the Alhambra, including the palace of the 
Caliphs, begun by Mohammed, who determined that 
it should surpass in magnificence all the royal palaces 
that had ever existed. It still stands, the delight and 
admiration of travellers ; its graceful porticos and 
colonnades, its walls and ceilings worked in delicate 
arabesque, and glowing with soft tints and rich gold, 
make us think well of the taste and refinement of 
the king who designed such a beautiful place to live in. 
Its airy halls were built around gardens, full of roses, 
pomegranate, and jasmine, and courts, with foun- 
tains playing, and broad pools of water, in which were 
reflected the deep blue and floating clouds of the 
southern heaven. 

King Mohammed ben Alhamar saw that the best 
foundation for thrones is the prosperity of the 
people. He applied himself to building hospitals 
for the sick, house's of entertainment for travellers, 
and of refuge for the poor: schools for children, and 
colleges for youth, not only in his capital but in 
many other towns throughout his kingdom ; he had 
aqueducts laid for supplying the towns with plenty 
of water, always a matter of highest importance to 
the Moors, canals, baths, fountains were built in 
profusion. He fortified the kingdom with strong- 
holds, both on the frontier and the interior, and 
although this was done by imposing heavy burdens 
on the people, in taxatfcn, they did not complain, as 
they saw the national resources laid out for the good 
of the community. For the Moors were, as always, 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 21 5 

an industrious and sober people, devoted to agricul- 
ture, which they pursued with an intelligence which 
produced the best results. From the vega, or broad 
plain which stretches far away in sight of the seat of ' 
the capitol, the Arabs obtained a constant succession 
of fruits and crops throughout the year, by cov- 
ering it with a network of channels through which 
flowed water to keep the soil constantly irrigated. 
They led happy, industrious lives, applying the 
wealth they so honestly gained, with an Oriental 
sense of beauty and color, to the adornment and 
luxury of living. 

When the Christians and Moors were not actually 
at war, there was unhampered intercourse between 
them ; they exchanged visits, formed acquaintances 
and friendships. The Spanish knight fell in love 
with the dark-eyed Zegri maiden, and in her honor 
contended for the prize of valor. The Moslem was 
not regarded as the " accursed misbeliever," to be 
shunned and maltreated as the Jews had always been, 
but as the brave and courtly knight with the same 
accomplishments and manners as the Christian 
gentleman. 

This state of things might have remained, with 
continued improvement in the progress of time, each 
race learning something of the other, — the Moors 
learning from the Christians the elements of their 
purer faith, while the Christians would acquire much 
from them in the way of industry and thrift, — had it 
not been for the internal dissensions which broke up 
the empire of Granada, and the desire of the Chris- 
tian kings to root out the Moslem belief. As the 



r 



2l6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Moors became more and more divided by petty 
quarrels, the Christians were becoming more closely 
united, and were ready to take advantage of every 
'crack thus disclosed in the armor of their antagonists. 
■ Still, there were twenty-three kings of Granada who 
managed to reign in succession, and to conduct their 
affairs in a certain prosperity, interrupted at times 
by contests with their Christian neighbors, or jealous 
rivalries among themselves. 

Most of these monarchs, or more than half of them, 
were named Mohammed. The fifth of the name had 
virtues, it is said, worthy of any throne, but, like 
the rest, he was not exempted from the curse of 
rebellion. He had a brother Ismail, of whom he was 
so fond, that he presented to him, for his own, a 
magnificent palace. But the mother of Ismail, who 
was not the mother of the king, was ambitious for 
her son and had long planned making him king. 
Such was one great source of the quarrels among the 
Moslems. Their laws allowed them at least three 
wives, so it often happened that the royal princes 
had different mothers, and each mother desired that 
her own son should reign, without regarding the 
question whether he were the eldest, or the most 
deserving. The mother of Ismail formed a party 
favorable to her son's interests, and they waited for 
some opportune chance to depose the king, and put 
the prince, his half-brother, on the throne. 

At last, on the 28th day of the moon, Ramadan, 
one hundred of the most resolute of them scaled, 
by night, the palace of Mohammed, descended 
through the roof and lay hid till midnight. Then, 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 217 

at a given signal, they rushed down the staircase, 
and along the passages of the beautiful Alhambra, 
a sword in one hand, a torch in the other, raising 
loud cries, and putting everybody they met to death. 
At the same moment, a more numerous body of 
them overwhelmed and massacred the guard from 
the outside, and then rushing into the palace, laid 
hand on every thing they could carry away. These 
conspirators were so delighted with the riches and 
treasures they found lying about them, that they for- 
got the original purpose of the expedition, while 
they were filling their pockets, and this gave to Mo- 
hammed the opportunity of escape. He was clothed 
by his mother's women in the disguise of a female 
slave, and succeeded in escaping through the gardens 
to the open country. Ismail was put upon the throne, 
to the joy of his manoeuvring mother, but her pleas- 
ure was of short duration, for the very chief she had 
employed to elevate her son to the throne, having 
learned the art of dethroning kings, persuaded the 
public to proclaim himself as monarch. The head 
of the unlucky Ismail was cut off and dragged through 
the mire, to the applause of the people. The con- 
spiring usurper afterwards fell into the hands of the 
Christians, and was condemned to death for dethron- 
ing his lawful sovereign. Mohammed the Fifth, 
then returned to his throne. 

Such instances of the sympathy of the Christains 
for the Moors were not uncommon. We may repeat 
the pretty story of a governor of Antiqueia, a frontier 
town constantly in warfare with the Moors in the 
neighborhood. 



2l8 . THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

On the eve of an expedition, Narvaez, the gov- 
ernor, despatched some horsemen to reconnoitre the 
county. The men, perceiving no enemy, were re- 
turning, when they suddenly fell in with a Moorish 
horseman, and made him prisoner. He was a young 
man, about twenty-three years of age, handsome and 
attractive, and richly clothed. His arms were of ex- 
quisite workmanship, and he rode a splendid horse. 
Evidently he belonged to the very first families. 

He was brought before the governor, who asked 
who he was, and whither he was going. The youth 
replied that he was the son of the Alcalde of Reuda ; 
as he endeavored to go on he showed much emotion, 
in fact his voice was nearly choked with tears. 

" What ! " exclaimed the governor, " the son of 
the Alcalde ! I know him well to be a brave warrior, 
but you are nothing better than a woman, for you weep 
like one. Are you such a coward as to fret for your 
capture, which is nothing but the fortune of war?" 

" It is not the loss of my liberty that I lament, but 
a misfortune far greater," replied the Moor. 

" Ah ! " replied the kind-hearted governor, " let 
us hear your case, perhaps we can relieve it." 

" I have long loved," the youth replied, " the 
daughter of an alcalde in our neighborhood. She 
loves me, and this very night is the one of our wed- 
ding. All is ready, she is awaiting me, and your 
soldiers have detained me! What will she think? 
She will doubtless die of anxiety and despair ! " 

" Noble cavalier ! " replied the compassionate gov- 
ernor, " go and see your mistress ; I will trust your 
return." 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 219 

So the Moor departed, and in spite of the long 
distance and so much delay he reached the dwelling of 
his mistress before daylight. He relieved her fears 
of his constancy, but had to tell her he had come 
only to say farewell, as he was pledged to return to 
his captors. 

" Generous man ! " she said, " My fate must be 
united with yours ; free or slave, you shall find me 
always at your side. Besides, in this casket are jewels 
enough to pay your ransom." 

The two lovers set forth together, and toward 
evening they arrived at Antiqueia. They were 
nobly received by Narvaez, who heaped praises on 
the fidelity of the cavalier, and the devotion of the 
maiden. The contents of the casket he refused to 
touch, and dismissed them loaded with presents, and 
accompanied by an escort to conduct therirsafely to 
Reuda. The news spread through the kingdom of 
Granada, and became the subject of many a ro- 
mance. 

And now the end was approaching of what may be 
called the most romantic and picturesque period of 
modern history. For years two races of different 
religions had been living close to each other, in the 
loveliest climate in the world, in the midst of re- 
sources which gave them every opportunity for 
wealth and luxurious living. The age bent itself to 
romance. People were just wise enough to use their 
brains to write ballads and dream dreams, not so 
deeply intellectual as to pierce every mystery with 
the sword of science. The quarrel between the two 
kingdoms was an abstract one, based upon their dif- 



220 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

ferent religious beliefs. Though they might call 
each other " misbeliever," and " Christian dog," 
there was no bitter underlying cause to prevent the 
young people from falling in love with each other. 
In fact, to judge from the ballads, we may fancy that 
their business was love-making, and their pastime 
going to war. Making all allowance for the glamor 
thrown by distance and poetry over the period, it was 
still a wonderful time of chivalric splendor and senti- 
mental heroism. 

But Ferdinand of Arragon had married Isabella of 
Castile, and the royal pair, calling themselves the 
Catholic kings of all Spain, were inspired with a fer- 
vid determination to root out of the country the 
enemies of the Christian religion. The queen her- 
self was especially ardent, assembling troops, conse- 
crating banners, and inspiring her favored knights. 
All the chivalry of Spain was enlisted in the cause, 
and the country ran^ with the promise of victory. 

The time was favorable, for Granada was even 
more divided than usual into quarrelling factions. 
Muley Ali Abul Hassan was upon the throne, and 
he perhaps might have been able to keep his politi- 
cal enemies at a distance, but discord at home was 
too much for him. One of his wives, it is said, was 
a vSpanish lady, whom he greatly loved, as well as 
her two sons, princes whom he favored with much of 
his time and affection. This made Zoraya, also his 
wife, and the mother of his oldest son, very jealous, 
and much afraid that her darling would be set aside 
in the succession. Abu Abdalla was the name of 
this prince ; romantic history has given the abbrevi- 
ated name of Boabdil. ^ 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 



221 



The beautiful enclosure of the Alhambra was at 
that time the scene of many stormy interviews and 
many secret consultations. 

It stood, and its ruins stand, on the top of a steep, 
cone-shaped hill, approached by a long drive-way, 
from the lower town of Granada. This avenue was 
irrigated by trickling water flowing down the hill, 




VIEW OF THE ALHAMBRA. 



and shaded by lofty trees and the thickest verdure. 
There roses blossomed, and jasmine and all " sweet 
things " ; the nightingale's voice was ever sounding its 
strange, sad note ; and fountains flashed a pleasant 
welcome to those who, winding up the steep, ap- 
proached the lofty gates of the citadel. 



222 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

The enclosure was fortified by a strong wall run- 
ning round it with towers at intervals, some of 
which were for its defence, others for the pleasure of 
the fair ladies who lived there. These little palaces 
were adorned with all the rich taste of the Oriental 
monarchs. Within the walls was space enough for 
something like a small town, its occupants subservi- 
ent to the needs of the monarchs. It contained 
streets, gardens, plazas, while the Alcazaba, or for- 
tress, occupied one end, looking down a precipice to 
the town. Two rivers in the valley flowed about the 
eminence on which the Alhambra was built, and on 
one side the walls of the palace itself rose in perpen- 
dicular continuation of the steep ascent, so that the 
windows on that side overlooked the tops of tall 
trees reaching up from the valley far below. The 
material of which the Alhambra is built is of a rich 
yellow-red color, given it by the nature of the soil 
of which it is made. This gives the name of Torres 
Bamejas [Vermillion Tower] to an ancient castle 
without the enclosure ; the term would answer as 
well to almost all the other buildings on the spot. 

The palace itself of the Alhambra occupies a large 
part of the fortified enclosure, one side of it incorpor- 
ated on the outer wall. The Arabs did not waste 
much time or money in outside ornamentation, and 
besides, a great deal of the original palace has been 
destroyed. The entrance is through a plain, low 
gateway, but once within, all the beauty of Arabic 
architecture shows itself. 

There was room within the ample confines of the 
palace for half-a-dozen rival sultanas to keep their 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 22$ 

court, without interfering with each other. They had 
baths, and courts, and gardens, and miradors, and to- 
cadors innumerable, all adorned with the graceful or- 
nament of Moorish architecture, and filled with every 
luxury. Those halls were already rich with legends 
of departed sultanas, immured captive maidens ; the 
floors of the courtyards were already stained with 
the blood of treacherous assassinations, and the sub- 
terranean depths of the mountain may bave even then 
contained the hidden treasures of vanished kings. 
v The Moors had taken Zahara, a stronghold of the 
Christians, and Muley Ali Abul Hassan returned to 
Grenada full of rejoicing, which was of short dura- 
tion, for there he soon learned that the Christians in 
revenge had seized upon Alhama, one of the bul- 
warks of his capital, and not far from it. 

When the news was brought to the king, the 
ballad says he would not believe it, but 

threw the lines in the fire 



And slew the messenger. 

He summoned his army, and hastened to recover 
this important post ; but was recalled on account of 
domestic troubles in the Alhambra. 

Zoraya, the mother of Boabdil, had thought this 
a good opportunity to incite the inhabitants of 
Granada to rebellion, from which she hoped to ob- 
tain advantages for her son. 

The king, by this time, was well acquainted with 
the uncomfortable temper of his early wife. He was 
not surprised to find that she was the prime mover 
of the rebellion, and thought that he could put an 



224 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

end to it by confining her and her son in one of the 
strong places which abound in the Alhambra. Then 
he went away again. 

Zoraya worked upon the feelings of her keepers 
and persuaded them to let her women come to her. 
The tower where they were confined was one of 
these overlooking the steep precipice. The women 
among them, by tying all their ample mantles to- 
gether, made a rope long enough and strong enough to 
lower the young prince in a basket to the foot of the 
hill, where trusty horsemen were ready to receive him. 

The prince was free. The anxious mother, from 
the battlement saw him off and away, and not long 
after, from the watch-tower of the turret where 
she was confined, there came up to her from the 
city, not far distant, shouts and cries which she 
knew must be : 

" Long live the king, Abu Abdalla ! " 

A struggle followed between the adherents of 
father and son, in "which the latter triumphed. 
Aided by his mother within the palace, the prince 
seized upon the Alhambra, and was recognized by 
the whole population of the foolish capital as their 
sovereign. Muley retired to Malaga, which adhered 
to him, and other towns declared in his favor. 

Thus the time, blood, energy, and money which 
should have been all concentrated upon the expul- 
sion of the Christian host which had sate down 
before the city, was wasted in internal discord. The 
short-sighted mother of Boabdil was so eager to place 
her son upon the throne, that she failed to see there 
soon would be no throne to place him upon. 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 225 

In the spring- of 1491, Ferdinand and Isabella in- 
vested the city of Granada, by establishing their 
camp upon the Vega, close under its walls. The 
queen herself was greatly interested in the city of 
Santa Fe, which was built just then for the comfort 
of the army and court. 

The space between the camp and the city walls 
became the scene of a desperate struggle, which 
brought out the bravery and daring of the flower 
of both armies. Many a single combat took place 
between Moslem and Christian knight, each splen- 
didly armed, and riding on steeds richly caparisoned. 
Moorish maiden and Spanish lady alike watched the 
combatants, and encouraged them by their applause, 
rewarding the victor with a ribbon or a smile. 

But while the defence was maintained with so 
much bravery, the young monarch, Abdalla, el re 
chico, the little king, as he is called in the ballads, 
was in great secrecy negotiating a surrender with the 
Christian monarchs. 

It was indeed impossible for the Moslems to hold 
out, and however the proud Zoraya, in one sense 
the cause of the ruin, might resist, the hour for her 
fall was come. Gonzaloo de Cordova, a Spaniard 
who was to become a great general, negotiated the 
terms of capitulation in the greatest secrecy with the 
Arab chiefs. A day was appointed for the surrender, 
but as the news of the agreement spread abroad, the 
agitation was so great in the city that the time was 
hastened, and on the 2d day of January, 1492, the 
last act in the drama was performed. 

In spite of the prayers and tears of Zoraya, 



226 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Boabdil prepared himself to relinquish the crown he 
had so foolishly snatched from the head of his fath er 
Perhaps the two princes, his half-brothers, with their 
Spanish mother, silently exulted at the downfall of 
their rival, while they themselves were joined in the 
ruin. 

The prince left the fortress accompanied by fifty 
of his chosen cavaliers, and sadly descended the hill 
from the Alhambra to the plain, and rode up to the 
position occupied by the Christian monarch, who was 
surrounded by his court, all splendidly dressed, with 
banners fluttering, and arms sparkling in the sun. 
As the Moor approached the Spaniard, he meant to 
throw himself from his horse and kneel upon the 
ground in token of homage ; but Ferdinand would 
not allow this ; on the contrary, he embraced him 
with every sign of kindness and compassion. 

Boabdil held the great keys of the Alhambra in his 
hand. He extended them to the conqueror, saying : 

" These keys are thine, O king, since Allah has 
decreed it ; use thy success with clemency and 
moderation." 

The Moorish monarch had still to signify his abdi- 
cation to the Queen Isabella, who with all her reti- 
nue was stationed at some distance. 

Then leaving the Christian sovereigns and their 
retinue to enter his city and celebrate their triumph 
with the solemn ceremonies of their religion and all 
the signs of exultant rejoicing, the Moorish king 
turned away, and joining his mother, the ambitious 
princess Zoraya, withdrew to the Alpuxarias, where 
he was allowed a barren retreat. 



THE FALL OF GRANADA. 227 

When the little party reached a rocky point among 
the hills which commanded a last view of Granada, 
Boabdil checked his horse,, and burst into tears as he 
looked back upon the home of his childhood, the 
proud citadel and fortress of the Alhambra, over 
which already waved the Christian standard. His 
mother bitterly remarked, it is said : 

" You do well to weep like a woman for what you 
could not defend like a man ! " 

Her son might have retorted : " Because you, like 
a woman, have deprived me of a kingdom which, 
not being a man, you could not defend ! " 

The spot is still pointed out where the Moorish 
king paused to look back upon his lost kingdom. It 
is called " El ultimo sospiro del moro." 

Abu Abdalla, or Boabdil, did not long remain in 
Spain. He sold the little dominion which had been 
allowed him to Ferdinand, and then passed over to 
Fez with his family, where his kinsmen were princes. 
It was not long before he died there, slain in battle, 
defending the throne of the king of Fez. 

Thus ended the war of Granada, and with the sur- 
render of its capital the Arabian Empire in the < 
Peninsula was terminated, after seven hundred and 
forty-one years from the date of" the original con- 
quest. Some Moors yet remained in Spain as 
late as the time of Philip III., but they had no 
further existence as a nation, and from this time 
dates the final extinction of a race which had made 
high advances in civilization, and brought the coun- 
try they adopted to a state of cultivation and pros- 
perity which it has not since surpassed. Their towns 



228 



THE STOR Y OF SPAIN. 



are in ruins, their palaces are deserted. The schemes 
for irrigation, by which they made the plains fertile 
and productive, have fallen away by neglect, and in 
consequence these fields often lie barren. 

It is said that in Morocco there still exist those who 
regard themselves as the descendants of the Moors 
of Spain. It is a sort of proverb, when such a one 
sighs in his sleep, to say, " See ! he is dreaming of 
Granada ! " 




FOUNTAIN OP THE LIONS, 



PART IV, 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PELAYO. 

We must now go back to see what became of the 
small remnant of the Goths after they were con- 
quered by the Moorish invasion, when Roderick was 
defeated. For it is evident that in the course of 
the centuries which followed, while the courts of 
Cordova and Granada flourished, the Christians must 
have been recovering their elasticity and strength, 
to be able at last to overthrow their enemies, and to 
drive out the invaders from their ancient soil. 

The accounts are but shadowy of the early deeds 
of the Christians, after the defeat of Roderick. 
Some of the historians are Arabic, some Spanish, 
and they frequently contradict each other. The 
legends and ballads are more entertaining, and if not 
so accurate, still reliable enough to give an impres- 
sion of the tendency of the times. 

The Goths were not all dead upon the field of 
that fatal battle on the banks of the Gaudalquivir ; 
they fled this way and that, seeking safety where 
best they could find it, and being driven into the 
northwest corner of Spain, they gradually found a 
sufficient body assembled to form a sort of colony, 
and later on a kingdom. They found there people 

231 



232 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

that in the days of their greatness the Goths had 
endeavored to subdue, but now, before the terror of 
the Moslem horde which was sweeping all before it, 
old quarrels were forgotten and the various races 
united in a common cause. Thus, the modern 
Spaniard has in him something of the early inhab- 
itants of those mountain fastnesses, — something, 
perhaps, of the Roman combined with the Goth in 
his blood. The discipline of endurance and priva- 
tion which these refugees had to endure was good 
for them. The fierce old nature of the Visigoths 
had been weakened and lowered by years of luxury 
and success ; it had now again to submit to hard 
work and rough living. 

Among the refugees were some of the prelates 
who, it is said, had carefully carried the sacred relics 
to the mountains with them, so that they kept up 
the ceremonies of the Church, though far away from 
their grand cathedrals. Many of the Goths were of 
the noblest blood and of great bravery. Among 
these was Pelayo, descended, perhaps from the 
royal house of Chindaswind. Perhaps he was a 
nephew of King Roderick. His origin is wrapped in 
much obscurity. Let us believe him to be of the 
bluest blood. 

The exiles chose him for their leader and crowned 
him king with such ceremonies as they could lay their 
hands upon. The new monarch soon had a chance 
to prove his kingship in an encounter with the Arabs, 
who had penetrated to their hiding-place. Pelayo 
concealed a small but resolute band of his troops in 
a cavern on the steep, rocky side of some mountain 



PELA YO. 233 

heights. The Arabs, knowing nothing of the cave, 
came plunging up the ascent to reach their enemy 
and were much surprised to find great stones and 
bits of rock tumbling down among them, knocking 
them over, and sweeping back their dense ranks into 
the valley below. Thousands were crushed by the 
great fragments, and so would all the rest have 
been, except that they ran away in great confu- 
sion. The small band of Christians came out of 
their hiding-place and pursued them, and the 
Arabs were so terrified by the proceeding, that 
they stayed away and molested the Christians no 
longer. 

This and other successes fixed the little kingdom 
upon a firm foundation. The Asturias were left in 
the undisturbed possession of the new king. The 
crown, if there was a crown, at all events, the re- 
gal office, descended to the son of Pelayo, and af- 
terwards remained in the family. Leon was cap- 
tured from the Infidel, and gave its name to the 
kingdom, which steadily increased in numbers and 
power, for, towards the end of the eighth century, Al- 
fonso II. was able to establish himself in Oviedowith 
all the ceremonies of a court. He made it the capital 
of his kingdom, and erected churches, founded pub- 
lic schools and hospitals, built baths, and decorated 
his palace with silver and gold vases and richly orna- 
mented furniture. All this had come to pass in less 
than a hundred years from the time when Pelayo is 
supposed to have been living in a cave. Alfonso 
had become strong enough to make war upon the 
Arabs, in which he was often successful. 



234 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

To his time belong the famous exploits of Ber- 
nardo del Carpio. He, the historians cruelly tell us, 
with his parents, are only creations of the imagina- 
tion. But this is the story: 

Alfonso el Casto, as he was called, was never mar- 
ried, and had no children. Apparently he wished no 
one else to marry, for he strongly opposed the mar- 
riage of his sister, the fair infanta Ximena. But she 
was beloved by the Count of Saldana, and, as she 
loved him in return, they were secretly married and 
lived happily together, without letting any one know 
of thei'r marriage, least of all the king. When he 
found it out, which he did in a year or two, he was 
terribly angry ; he seized his sister and shut her up 
in a convent ; he put her husband in prison for life, 
and sent their little son, who had been born in the 
meantime, into the Asturias. 

People there imagined him to be the son of the 
king, and everybody treated him as if he were. He 
was brought up among the mountains to lead a 
healthy, out - door life, and became strong and 
brave, and handsome as the day. As soon as he 
was old enough he put on armor, and became a 
knight of the greatest prowess, the terror alike of 
Frank and Moor — all the time supposing he was 
the son of King Alfonso, although the king never 
said so, or treated him as such, except to furnish 
him with armor and all the accoutrements required 
for a knight of noble birth. 

Now, the unfortunate Count Sancho Diaz was all 
this time in prison, where accounts were brought 
him, by his keepers, of the wonderful exploits of the 



PELAYO. 235 

young prince Bernardo del Carpio, as he was called. 
Sancho knew very well that this was his son — his 
only son. Some accounts say that the cruel king 
had caused Sancho's eyes to be put out. Blind 
and in prison he complained bitterly of the in- 
gratitude of a child who could leave his father 
languishing in chains, while he rode about joy- 
ously on a fine horse, fighting in battle, and win- 
ning victory and praise wherever he went. But 
Bernardo knew nothing about it. 

This was the time, according to the Spanish 
chronicles, when Charlemagne invaded Spain ; and 
some of them say that it was by the invitation of 
Alfonso, who proposed to him to come and destroy 
the Moors, promising him in reward the inheritance 
of his own throne of the Asturias. There is nothing 
of this in history, nor, as we have seen, in the Song 
of Roland. 

Bernardo del Carpio and all the other nobles of 
King Alfonso's court resented the plan of giving up 
the ancient kingdom of the Goths to a stranger, and 
Alfonso himself repented of his promise, so that when 
Charlemagne arrived, he found the king who had in- 
vited him allied with the infidels against him. Ac- 
cording to this account, it was the troops of Alfonso 
who attacked the rear of the Franks in the pass of 
Rencesvalles; it was they who gained the victory in 
the fearful attack when Roland was slain, and their 
success was ascribed to the prowess of Bernardo del 
Carpio : 

As through the glen his spears did gleam, the soldiers from the 
hills, 



236 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

They swelled his host, as mountain-stream receives the roaring 

rills ; 
They round his banner flocked in scorn of haughty Charlemagne, 
And thus upon their swords are sworn the faithful sons of Spain. 

When he was returning from this stupendous tri- 
umph, in the greatest state, with everybody at his 
feet, Bernardo learned — some say from the lips of 
his old nurse, who had kept the story to herself till 
then — the true story of his birth: how the king was 
his uncle ; how his mother, whom, as a little boy, 
he dimly remembered, a fair and gentle lady who 
stroked his long curls, the king's sister, who was 
shut up in a cloister, not dead as he supposed ; and 
how his father, blind and in chains, was languishing 
in a dungeon. 

Full of wrath, and relying on his recent services to 
receive whatever he asked, he demanded of the king 
the release of his father. It was denied. Then 
Bernardo refused to come to the rejoicings which 
followed the victory. He shut himself up in his 
castle and remained there, still pressing the king with 
importunities for his father's release. 

" Sir King and Uncle," said he, " is it fitting that I 
should be abroad and fighting thy battles, when my 
father is in fetters ? Release him, and I shall think 
myself well rewarded." 

As the king did nothing of the kind, Bernardo 
went over to the side of his enemies, the Moors. 
He fortified his castle, and made continual incursions 
into the king's country, pillaging and plundering 
wherever he came, and encouraging the inroads of 
the king's enemies. 



PELA YO. 237 

At last the counsellors of the king urged him to 
offer Bernardo immediate possession of his father's 
person if he would surrender his castle. Bernardo 
accepted without hesitation. He gave up the keys, 
joined the king, and with him rode out to meet his 
long lost parent. 

When he saw him coming, clothed in splendid 
attire, and mounted on horseback, Bernardo ex- 
claimed : " O God ! is that indeed the Count of 
Saldafia ? " " Look where he is," replied the king, 
" and go and greet him whom you so long have 
desired to see." 

Bernardo advanced and took his father's hand to 
kiss it. The body fell forward heavily ; it was only 
a corpse. The king had caused him to be slain. 
Bernardo del Carpio swore a fearful vengeance upon 
the king, and from that moment his sword was lost 
to the Christians. But we are left entirely in the 
dark as to the rest of his story. 

The historians say that no such person ever existed 
as Bernardo del Carpio, as they assert that the whole 
story of Roland and his wonderful horn is a pure 
fiction. Bernardo's name, they say, was never men- 
tioned until five hundred years afterwards. This is 
sad, but we may comfort ourselves with thinking 
that the ballads would never have been sung, the 
stories told from mouth to mouth, had there not 
been some foundation for them. The spirit of high 
renown and bravery was in existence which prompted 
heroic deeds. The tender friendship between Ro- 
land and Olivier was real, or it would not have been 
made the subject of a song. The deeds themselves 



238 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

and the motives which prompted them, and, besides, 
the manners and customs of the time in which they 
are described as happening, are what we care to know 
about, and these we gather from ballad and tale, and 
only wish there were more of the same sort to light 
up the solemnity of historical records. 

The early Catholics believed faithfully in their 
saints, and the best saint for them of all was James 
the Elder, the brother of John the Evangelist. 

James was stoned to death in Jerusalem, but the 
Spaniards firmly believe that his body was transferred 
to their country, where the Bishop Theodemir, in 
835, found it in Galicia, being led to the place by a 
star which pointed it out to him, where it lay in a 
forest. A chapel was erected on the spot, but the 
body was moved a short distance later to the place 
now called Santiago or Saint Jago de Campostella, 
on account of the star having led to the discovery. 
A cathedral was erected there, and under it, in a 
subterranean chapel, was placed the tomb of the 
saint. Pilgrims flocked to Campostella to worship 
the shrine, which became one of the most famous in 
the world ; and Santiago, from his choice of Spain 
as a final resting-place, became the patron of the 
land. 

Ramiro, the successor of Alfonso el Casto, had 
reason to worship the saint. It was not very long 
after his body had been discovered in the neighbor- 
hood, that he showed his watchfulness over the 
Spanish arms. The occasion was a battle with the 
Saracens at Clavigo. It had already waged through 
the whole of one day, and the fortune of war had 



PELA YO. 239 

been against the Christians. An old writer describes 
it: 

Night arrived, and brought safety to ours, since 
there is nothing, however small, in war, which may 
not be turned to good account. 

Ramiro drew his troops, alike diminished in num- 
ber and weakened by fear, to a neighboring hill ; 
there he confessed himself vanquished. The place 
was fortified, the wounded attended ; yet such were 
the despair and lamentation that all were engaged 
in prayer or drowned in tears. 

As the king was thus oppressed by grief, and 
anxious for the result, sleep fell upon him. As he 
slept, the apparition of Santiago, more majestic than 
any human figure, bade him be of good courage, 
since, with the aid of heaven, he might indulge 
assured hope of victory on the following day. 

Cheered by these words of the apostle, and de- 
lighted with the tidings, he arose from his couch, 
commanding his prelates and chiefs to be summoned 
before him, and then addressed them at length, 
urging them to battle, and filling them with joy 
by acquainting them with the celestial vision and 
promise of victory. 

Having thus spoken, he commanded the lines to 
be drawn out, and the trumpets to sound. With 
great eagerness ours rushed on the enemy, calling 
loudly on the name of Saint James, which from this 
time forward became the common invocation of the 
Spanish soldiers. The barbarians, astonished at the 
boldness of ours, whom they considered vanquished 
beyond redemption, and overcome with fear from 
heaven, could not bear the onset. 



240 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Santiago, as he had promised the king, was seen 
on a white horse, bearing aloft a white standard, on 
which was inscribed in red the form of a cross. The 
courage of ours was increased, that of the barbarian 
vanished at the sight. The flight was dishonorable, 
not less the destruction ; sixty thousand Moors were 
slain. 

" At this day," says the old writer, " the bones and 
arms which are dug up sufficiently show us Clavigo 
where the battle was fought." 

The victorious army, in gratitude for divine aid, 
bowed to the saint under whose guidance the battle 
had been won, that all Spain should thenceforth be 
tributary to the church of Campostella, and that 
every acre of ploughed and vine land should pay 
every year a bushel of corn or wine to that church. 

That Santiago did assist Ramiro is proved by a 
perpetual miracle. In all the vicinity of Clavigo, 
where the battle was fought, scallop-shells are found 
in the stones, so exact and perfect that art could not 
form a more accurate resemblance. Some say they 
have been there since the apostle preached there in 
his lifetime, others refer them to the time of this 
battle. 

The scallop was the mark of a pilgrim to Campos- 
tella, as the palm was of those who had visited the 
Holy Land. The words palmer and pilgrim are 
therefore not exactly the same. 

Perhaps it was this king, perhaps another, who can 
tell, who had promised to furnish every year, as 
tribute to Abderahman, one hundred beautiful dam- 
sels. He failed this time to keep his promise, and 



PEL A YO. 24I 

hence the battle. It is hinted that his failure was 
because so many beautiful women could not be found 
in the Asturias ; the ballad gives a better reason. It 
tells how a maiden sought audience of King Ramiro, 
and set before him the folly of sending women to the 
enemy's camp, as well as the want of gallantry of it. 
She even threatened him with the displeasure of her 
sex. 

I pray you, sire, take warning, — You '11 have as good a fight 
If e'er the Spanish damsels arise themselves to right. 

Then uprose King Ramiro, and his nobles every 
one, and went forth to battle, swearing to put an end 
to the maiden tribute. 

A cry went through the mountains, when the proud Moor came near, 
And trooping to Ramiro came every Christian spear ; 

The blessed Santiago, they called upon his name — 

That day began our freedom, and wiped away our shame. 

Legends of the apparition of Saint Jago on the 
battle-field are many. He is sometimes accompanied 
by another ghostly warrior and saint. 

FROM THE VIDA DE SAN MILAN. 

BY GONSALO DE BERCEO. 

And when the kings were in the field, their squadrons in array, 
With lance in rest they onward pressed to mingle in the fray ; 
But soon upon the Christians fell a terror of their foes, — 
These were a numerous army, a little handful those. 

And while the Christian people stood in this uncertainty, 

Upward toward heaven they turned their eyes and fixed their 

thoughts on high, 
And there two persons they beheld, all beautiful and bright, 
Even than the pure new-fallen snow their garments were more white. 



242 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

They rode upon two horses more white than crystal sheen, 
And arms they bore such as before no mortal man had seen ; 
The one he held a'crosier, a pontiffs mitre wore ; 
The other held a crucifix, — such man ne'er saw before. 

Their faces were angelical, celestial forms had they, — 
And downward through the fields of air they urged their rapid way ; 
They looked upon the Moorish host with fierce and angry look 
And in their hands, with dire portent, their naked sabres shook. 

The Christian host, beholding this straightway take heart again, 
They fall upon their bended knees, all resting on the plain, 
And each one with his clenched fist to smite his breast begins, 
And promises to God on high he will forsake his sins. 

And when the heavenly knights drew near unto the battle ground ; 
They dashed among the Moors and delt unerring blows around. 
Such deadly havoc there they made the foremost ranks along, 
A panic terror spread into the hindmost of the throng. 

Together with these two good knights, the champions of the sky, 
The Christians rallied and began to smite full sore and high : 
The Moors raised up their voices, and by the Koran swore 
That in their lives such deldly fray they ne'er had seen before. 

Down went the misbelievers : fast sped the bloody fight, 

Some ghastly and dismembered lay, and some half dead with fright : 

Full sorely they repented that to the field they came, 

For they saw that from that battle they should retreat with shame, 

Another thing befell them, — they dreamed not of such woes, — 
The very arrow that the Moors shot from their twanging bows 
Turned back against them in their flight and wounded them full sore, 
And every blow they dealt the foe was paid in drops of gore. 

Now he that bore the crosier, and the papal crown had on 
Was the glorified Apostle, tbe brother of Saint John ; 
And he that held the crucifix, and wore the monkish hood, 
Was the holy San Milano of Cogalla's neighborhood. 



PELA YO. 243 

There is a story of one of these kings about this 
time, named Sancho the Fat. He was so very fat 
that he could not get about comfortably, and as no 
Christian leech could prescribe for the difficulty, he 
wrote to the Moorish king, Abderahman III., and 
asked permission to visit the capital, in order to see 
what the Arabic physicians of Cordova could do for 
him, as they were very famous. A cordial invitation 
was the response of the Caliph. 

The king went as a guest to the palace at Cordova, 
and was received and entertained with magnificence, 
while the royal physicians were put at his disposi- 
tion. They brought him a herb which took away 
all his fatness, and reduced Him to his pristine light 
weight. Moreover, he became so friendly with the 
Moslems, that they agreed to lend a hand in restor- 
ing him to his throne which had been taken from 
him. The light and agile king, to the amazement of 
his enemies, returned from Andalusia with an army, 
drove the intruder from his throne, and prepared to 
reign comfortably himself. Unluckily he was poison- 
ed not long afterward by one of his Christian allies. 

Little states were springing up everywhere, and 
claiming to be great ones. Navarre, close by the 
Asturias was a kingdom by this time. Its earlier his- 
tory is obscure. Wedged in between France and 
Spain, it has always been a sort of fighting ground 
for both countries. Pampeluna, its chief city, was the 
one laid waste by Charlemagne according to the Song 
of Roland ; and its rulers were sometimes of French 
descent, and, later on, Navarre furnished to France 
one of the greatest of her kings. 



244 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

In the early times, the connection was close, often 
by blood, with the kings of Asturia and Leon, some- 
times it was peaceful, sometimes warlike. In fact, it 
was a question of who was the stronger and who 
could get and hold the upper hand. No broad 
underlying rule of policy could be expected of the 
early kings of the Spanish states. To keep the 
Moslem from the door was their chief aim, and, 
in times of great danger, they united upon this. A 
powerful king, with a talent for ruling, could 
compel the adherence of those around him, and 
make himself the leader of them, to invade the 
region of the Arabs, or to protect his own from 
them. At his death, his kingdom fell off again, 
broken up into little states. Yet with all this the 
Christian territory was spreading over more and 
more of Spain, while, as we have seen, the Moslems 
were forced to recede into ever narrower limits. 

The courts of Castile, up to this time, had been 
regarded as dependent upon the kings of Asturia, or 
Leon. One of them, Fernan Gonzalez, has a story 
so romantic that the historians can hardly bear to 
believe that he was a real character. But there is 
ample proof that he was really alive, somewhere near 
the middle of the tenth century, in the reign of King 
Ramiro II., of Leon. Fernan Gonzalez with another 
Count of Castile, revolted against their sovereign, 
alleging as a reason that they did not want to fight 
any more just then against the Arabs. He was on 
his way to Navarre, to marry SaUcha, a princess of 
that court, when he was seized and thrown into 
prison by the King of Leon. The ballads say that 



PELA YO. 245 

he was thus imprisoned to please the Queen of Leon, 
who was also a princess of Navarre, and an enemy of 
Fernan. The ballads tell, that while he was in prison, 
a Norman pilgrim, on his way back from Campos- 
tella, where he had been to visit the tomb of Saint 
James, heard something of his story, as he passed 
near the place where Count Fernan was confined. 
As this Norman was in no great hurry, he bribed the 
alcalde of the place, to let him see the illustrious 
captive. 

The alcalde was so joyful, — he took the gold full soon, 

He brought him to the dungeon, ere the rising of the moon. 

They had a long talk, and Fernan told him the 
story, and how he was pining for love of the Princess 
Sancha, whom now he might never see. 

The Norman passing through Navarre, hastened to 
the palace, sought an interview with the princess, 
and told her his tale. 

" May God and St. Mary forgive you, infanta ! " 
said the stranger. "You are causing the death of 
the best man alive. Count Fernan Gonzalez, the 
hero of Castile, is dying for love of you, but he lies 
in a dungeon. Unless you help him, you will be the 
scorn of the world ; but if you will aid him to escape, 
you will be Queen of Castile ! " 

Sancha hastened to the prison, bringing her jewels 
to bribe the alcalde. Again he must have thought 
he was in luck. He allowed her to carry off his 
prisoner, and they hastened off together through 
the forest. 

Towards evening they were alarmed by the ap- 



246 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

pearance of a troop of horsemen. The infanta ran 
to conceal herself behind some bushes, when she was 
recalled by the voice of her lover, who had recog- 
nized among the approaching band the pennon of 
Castile. They were his own vassals, who had left 
Burgos, his native place, in a body, swearing a great 
oath never to return without their beloved chief. 

There was great rejoicing, and Fernan and the 
princess were married at the first opportunity. 

The count was fond of hunting, and once, although 
on the eve of a battle with the Moors, he pursued a 
wild boar into the mountains. He was eagerly fol- 
lowing the animal, when suddenly it disappeared in 
a mysterious manner, and the count, to his surprise, 
found himself in a grotto converted into an oratory, 
with an humble altar in it, dedicated to Saint Peter. 
Moved with reverence at so unexpected a sight, the 
huntsman fell upon his knees and began his devotions. 
A hermit then appeared, who, it seems, abode in that 
place for the sake of a holy life. He received the 
count with great courtesy, kept him over night as 
his guest, and when he left him in the morning, gave 
him the assurance that he would triumph over the 
misbelievers. The event justified the prediction, and 
Gonzalez was convinced that the boar had led him 
by a miracle to the holy grotto. 

Later on, during an irruption of the fierce Al- 
manzor into Castile, Count Fernan on the eve of 
battle sought again the cell of his friend, the hermit, 
hoping for his prayers and perhaps a sign concerning 
the fate of battle. The holy man was there no 
longer; dead, perhaps. But while the count slept 



PELA YO. 247 

again in the cell, now solitary, he saw Pelayo, the 
hermit, in his dreams, who again promised victory. 
And next day, in the midst of the battle, Santiago, 
the martial patron of Spain, was once more seen 
upon his white horse, with cross and banner un- 
furled. The grateful count founded a monastery on 
the site of the grotto dedicated to Saint Peter. 

Burgos, the native town of this hero of romance, 
as well as of the Cid, even more celebrated, has a 
statue of Fernan Gonzalez, and an arch erected to 
his memory by Philip II. 

History admits that Fernan Gonzalez not only 
lived, but died (in 970), and that he was the founder 
of the sovereignty of Castile, of which he made a 
kingdom. Not long after Castile, as well as Leon, 
came into the hands of a king of Navarre, for there 
was much intermarrying between the royal houses of 
these small states. After this, for two centuries they 
were sometimes divided, sometimes united, — some- 
times one king bore the titles of the three provinces. 
When this was the case, the successes of the Chris- 
tians over the Moslems extended their domain more 
and more toward the south. In 1085 Alfonso VI. 
regained Toledo from the Moslems, after it had re- 
mained in their power for more than three centuries. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE CID. 



THE Moorish dominion over southern Spain lasted 
for seven centuries. At the beginning there was 
perpetual war on the frontier which parted Mussul- 
mans and Christians. Of this daily fighting there is, 
fortunately, and, of course, no record. Ballads and 
legends preserve the memory of this and that inci- 
dent, which has a special interest for romance ; but 
it would be hard to make out even a dry calendar of 
the names of the different princes who wore the 
different Spanish crowns, such as they were. The 
peaceful habits of the Goths, as we describe them in 
the period before Roderick's fall, were wholly for- 
gotten. " It was in war that the chiefs found their 
sport and their spoil : that the king at once employed 
and gratified a turbulent nobility; that the people 
indulged their worst passions, and believed that they 
were at the same time atoning for their sins. And 
what a warfare ! It was to burn the standing corn, 
to root up the vine and the olive, to hang the heads 
of their enemies from the saddle-bow, and to drive 
mothers and children before them with the lance, 
to massacre the men of a town in the fury of assault, 
to select the chiefs that they might be murdered in 

248 



the cid. 249 

cold blood, to reserve the women and the children 
for slavery ; and this warfare lasted year after year 
till they rested from mere exhaustion. At one time 
knights, nobles, and kings never slept unless the 
war-horse were standing ready saddled in the bed- 
chamber." This is Mr. Southey's description of the 
generations into which Rodrigo del Bivar, better 
known as the Cid or Campeador, was born. Cid or 
Sid is an Arabic word, signifying chief. Campeador 
has a derivation similar to our word champion, and 
has a similar meaning. 

% Among the many sceptics of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, there have risen critics who coolly doubt the 
very existence of the Cid. They set him on one 
side coolly, as a being as imaginary as Lancelot or as 
Amadis. What is to be remarked especially is the 
curious fact that the poem which bears his name is 
much more to be relied upon, — or, on its face, appears 
more probable than what is called the " chronicle." 
For once poetry indicates a claim to be closer to the 
fact than prose. 

The question regarding the credence to be given 
to the legends is, as the reader knows, not a peculiar 
one in the case of the Cid. It is almost exactly like 
the question regarding the myths of our own King 
Arthur. Was there, or was there not, a real Arthur, 
around whom clustered the stories of the Round 
Table. The reader of " The Story of Spain " has 
already had a like question in regard to Roland and 
Olivier, — and the extraordinary " Song of Roland," 
and his defeat in Roncesvalles. 

The politics or intrigues in the midst of which the 



250 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Cid fought his first battles and won his first victories, 
can be written out in detail more than sufficient. 
More than sufficient, for no reader would remember 
them for an hour after he had read them, nor would 
it profit him to remember them a minute after. It 
is quite enough to say that Don Sancho, the king of 
Navarre and Leon and Castile, died, leaving three 
sons, and to each son, as if it were a fairy tale, he 
left one of these kingdoms, so called. As he might 
have foreseen, or as even the least experienced reader 
of fairy tales could have taught him, these sons fell 
to fighting with each other. " For it was by no 
means in wars against the Saracen alone that the 
blood of Christian men was spent." 

This is the language of the poet Southey, in the 
introduction to his translation in the chronicle of the 
Cid. For our purpose the absolute veracity of the 
chronicle is not important. We do not read it for 
the stubborn facts, .which are not, after all, of so 
much importance, as the light which it throws on 
the manner and customs of the time, on its sentiment 
and on its faith. The Cid may be roughly remem- 
bered as being about the contemporary of William 
the Conqueror, and his sons. The chronicle of the 
Cid was written, rather more than a century after, a 
little later than the time of Richard Cceur-de-Lion. 
This is to say that it is written in the time when 
romances began to take the form which they held 
until the time when Cervantes laughed them out of 
existence, and, as has been said, the Cid and his af- 
fairs belong almost precisely to that mythic or mys- 
terious period to which Amadis of Gaul, Palmerin, 



THE CID. 251 

and Esplandian, were made to belong by their 
authors. These are entirely creatures of the imagina- 
tion, while, as we suppose, Rodrigo del Bivar and his 
exploits, were as real as Arthur and the Emperor 
Justinian. After-ages of Spanish chivalry read all 
the stories with equal confidence. To Cortes and his 
companions the prowess of Amadis was something 
as certain as that of the Cid, and when he came to 
give a name to the peninsula of California, he took 
it from the romance of Esplandian, where it is given 
to the farthest island of the east, the island of a 
Amazon queen or califa, whose home was rich in dia- 
monds and gold. 

It will be better for the reader that we shall copy 
a single story of the life of the Cid, than that we 
shall attempt to condense the narrative of his vari- 
ous exploits in my abridgement. Enough that he 
served Fernando, the king of Castile, and considered 
himself always bound to sustain the honor of Castile. 
In such duty he fought now against Arragon, now 
against Leon, now against Navarre, now against Va- 
lencia. Sometimes he was against the Moors, some- 
times he fought with them. King Alfonso banished 
him once and again. But the Cid was more than a 
match for King Alfonso. The Cid's daughters, ac- 
cording to the romance, married the Counts of 
Carrion, but the Cid and his sons-in-law did not fare 
well together, and the last years of his life were made 
wretched by these worse than Paynim hounds. 

Here is Mr. Southey's rendering of the scene 
where the Cid proclaims his unwillingness to serve 
any king as a vassal. 



252 THE STORY OF SPA IX. 

" My Cid and his company alighted at the gate of 
the palaces of Galiana, and he and his people went 
in gravely, he in the midst and his hundred knights 
round about him. When he who was born in happy 
hour entered, the good king, Don Alfonso, rose up, 
and the counts, Don Aurrich and Don Remond, did 
the like, and so did all the others, save the eurly- 
headed one of Granon, and they who were on the 
side of the Infantes of Carrion. All the others 
received him with great honor, and he said unto 
the king : ' Sir, where do you bid me sit with these 
my kinsmen and friends who are come with me ? ' 
And the king made answer : ' Cid, you are such a 
one, and have passed your time so well to this day, 
that if you would listen to me and be commanded by 
me, I should hold it good that you took your seat 
with me ; for he who hath conquered kings, ought to 
be seated with kings/ But the Cid answered : ' That, 
Sir, would not please God, but I will be at your feet ; 
for by the favor of the king, your father^ Don Fer- 
nando, was I made his creature and the creature of 
your brother, King Don Sancho, am I, and it be- 
hooveth not that he who receiveth bounty should sit 
with him who dispenseth it.' And the king an- 
swered : ' Since you will not sit with me, sit on your 
ivory seat, for you won it like a good man ; and from 
this day I order that none except king or prelate sit 
with you, for you have conquered so many high-born 
men, and so many kings, both Christians and Moors, 
that for this reason there is none who is your peer, 
or ought to be seated with you. Sit, therefore, like 
a king and lord upon your ivory seat/ Then the 




PUERTA DI SANTA MARIA, BURGOS. 
253 



254 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Cid kissed the king's hand, and thanked him for 
what he had said, and for the honor which he had 
done him ; and he took his seat, and his hundred 
knights seated themselves round about him. All 
who were in the Cortes sat looking at my Cid and 
at his long beard which he had bound with a cord ; 
but the Infantes of Carrion could not look upon him 
for shame." 

Like most knights of chivalry or of romance who 
were confident in their own lances and their own 
valor, " our Cid " was very indifferent to the orders 
of the king in whose dominions he happened to live. 
In a fashion he was respectful to him, as has been seen, 
but absolute obedience was quite another affair. At 
one time when he had made a raid into the domin- 
ions of the Moorish king of Toledo, Alfonso, his 
own sovereign, who was bound by a treaty with that 
prince, remonstrated. In the end the Cid was ban- 
ished from Leon and Castile. His followers, how- 
ever, refused to leave him. 

As he was about to depart, he looked back upon 
his own home. And, when he saw his hall deserted, 
the household chests unfastened, the doors open, no 
cloaks hanging up, no seats in the porch, no hawks 
upon the perches, the tears came into his eyes, and 
he said : ' My enemies have done this. God be 
praised for all things.' So he and his cavalcade 
came to Burgos. But the people would not receive 
him there, and he had to take up his lodging on the 
sands near the town. He escaped from immediate 
need by pawning to two Jews two chests of treasure, 
which he told them were full of gold. The Jews ad- 




STREET IN VALENCIA. 
255 



256 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

vanced him six hundred marks on security so good. 
But alas, when he failed to pay, as he did, it proved 
that the chests were filled with sand. Such a story as 
that is told as if it were a good joke, so completely 
does hatred of the Jews overshadow any gleams of 
the moral sense in their chivalrous chronicles. 

At last, King Alfonso attacks Toledo and takes 
it from the Moors. As always in the chronicle, the 
Cid leads the way. His was the first banner to enter, 
and he is made the first Alcalde of the place. But 
this does not mean that he accepts permanent ser- 
vice under Alfonso. He always appears as a free 
lance, serving as he will against some chosen enemy 
of the hour. 

In the course of such fighting, he becomes gov- 
ernor of Valencia and commander, of course, of its 
garrison. But such a command was challenged by 
the Moors, of whom thirty thousand, as we are told, 
invested the city. The Cid never counted the enemy. 
He sallied forth, and beat them in the field, drove 
them to the river Xucat, and killed fifteen thousand 
as he did so. 

" Be it known." says the chronicle, " that this was 
a profitable day's work. Every foot-soldier shared a 
hundred marks of silver that day.; and the Cid re- 
turned full honorably to Valencia. Great was the 
joy of the Christians in the Cid Ruy Dias, who was 
born in a happy hour. His beard was grown, and 
continued to grow, a great length. My Cid said of 
his chin : ' For the love of King Don Alfonso, who 
hath banished me from his land, no scissors shall 
come upon it, nor shall a hair be cut away, and 



THE CID. 257 

Moors and Christians shall talk of it.' ' And this 
one he kept until he died. He made a count of his 
own followers. " There are found one thousand 
knights of lineage, and five hundred and fifty other 
horsemen. There were four thousand foot-soldiers, 
besides boys and others. Thus many were the peo- 
ple of my Cid, him of Bivar. And his heart rejoiced, 
and he smiled, and said: 'Thanks be to God, and 
to Holy Mother Mary. We had a smaller company 
when he left the house of Bivar.' ' : 

In the next year King Yussef * invested Valencia 
again. And this time the Saracens had fifty thousand 
men. The Cid went out to meet them with four 
thousand. His bishop, Hieronymo, "a full learned 
man and wise, and one who was mighty on horse- 
back and on foot," absolved the little company. 
" He who shall die," said he, " fighting full forward, 
I will take his sins and God shall have his soul." 
Then said he : " A boon, Cid don Rodrigo ; I have 
sung mass to you this morning. Let me have the 
giving of the first wounds in this battle." And the 
Cid gave him leave in the name of God. And 
indeed the bishop had fighting enough that day. He 
fought with both hands, and no man knew how 
many he slew. Of course, as a sceptic historian 
writes, the horde of Yussef was destroyed — only 
fifteen thousand of the misbelievers escaped. The 
Cid secured the famous sword Tizona, which be- 
longed to Yussef, and he scarcely escaped, sorely 
wounded. 

* Of these invasions of Yussef the reader has seen the calmer ac- 
count, in history, in a previous chapter. 



258 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Bucar, Yussef's brother, comes to avenge him. 
The Cid arrays his army with the bishop on the 
right wing. " The bishop pricked forward. Two 
Moors he slew with the two first thrusts of his lance, 
the haft broke, and he laid hold on his sword. God ! 
how well the bishop fought. He slew two with the 
lance and five with the sword. The Moors fled. 
The Cid pursued Bucar," and made at him to strike 
him with his sword. And the Moorish king knew 
him. " Turn this way, Bucar," cried the Cid — " you 
who came from behind sea to see the Cid with the 
long beard. We must greet each other and cut out 
a friendship." " God confound such friendships," 
cried King Bucar, and turned his bridle and began to 
fly toward the sea, and the Cid after him, having 
great desire to reach him. But King Bucar had a 
good horse and a fresh, while the Cid went spurring 
Buvieca, who had had hard work that day, and he 
came near his back. And when they were nigh to 
the ships the Cid saw that he could not reach him, 
and he darted his sword at him and struck him 
between the shoulders ; and King Bucar, being badly 
wounded, rode into the sea and got into a boat, and 
the Cid alighted and picked up his sword. And his 
people came up, hewing down the Moors before 
them, and the Moors in their fear of death ran into 
the sea, so that twice as many died in the water as 
in the battle ; nevertheless, so many were they that 
were slain in the battle that they were thought to be 
seventeen thousand persons, and upward. And so 
many were they who were taken prisoners that it 
was a wonder ; and of the twenty-nine kings who 
came with Bucar seventeen were slain. 



THE CID. 259 

The reader now has reason for understanding why 
the narration of the chronicle is dismissed from the 
domain of stern history. A passage from the poem 
which has been called the noblest poem in Spanish 
literature, will give him an idea of the Cid's courage 
before lions. 

" Peter Bermuez arose ; somewhat he had to say ; 
The words were strangled in his throat, they could not find their 

way ; 
Till forth they came at once, without a stop or stay ; 
' Cid, I '11 tell you what, this always is your way ; 
You have always served me thus ; whenever we have come 
To meet here in the Cortes, you call me Peter the Dumb. 
I cannot help my nature ; I never talk nor rail ; 
But when a thing is to be done, you know I never fail. 
Fernando, you have lied, you have lied in every word ; 
You have been honored by the Cid, and favored and preferred. 
I know of all your tricks, and can tell them to your face : 
Do you remember in Valencia the skirmish and the chase ? 
You asked leave of the Cid to make the first attack ; 
You went to meet a Moor, but you soon came running back. 
I met the Moor and killed him, or he would have killed you ; 
I gave you up his arms, and all that was my due. 
Up to this very hour, I never said a word ; 
You praised yourself before the Cid, and I stood by and heard 
How you had killed the Moor, and done a valiant act ; 
And they believed you all, but they never knew the fact. 
You are tall enough and handsome, but cowardly and weak, 
Thou tongue without a hand, how can you dare to speak ? 
There 's the story of the lions should never be forgot ; 
Now let us hear, Fernando, what answer have you got ? 
The Cid was sleeping in his chair, with all his knights around ; 
The cry went forth along the hall, that the lion was unbound. 
What did you do, Fernando ? like a coward as you were, 
You slunk behind the Cid, and crouched beneath his chair. 
We pressed around the throne, to shield our loved from harm, 
Till the good Cid awoke ; he rose without alarm ; 
He went to meet the lion with his mantle on his arm ; 



260 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

The lion was abashed the noble Cid to meet ; 

He bound his mane to the earth, his muzzle at his feet 

The Cid by the neck and mane drew him to his den, 

He thrust him in at the hatch, and came to the hall again ; 

He found his knights, his vassals, and all his valiant men ; 

He asked for his sons-in-law, they were neither of them there. 

I defy you for a coward and a traitor as you are.' " 

Such victories cannot last forever, even under the 
pen of a romancer of the twelfth century. At last 
the Cid comes to his death. 

He took to his bed. Saint Lazarus had told him 
forty years before, that in his bed he should die. 
And for seven nights he saw visions. He saw his 
father, Diego Laynez, and Diego Rodriguez, his son. 
And every time they said to him : " You have tarried 
long here, let us go now among the people who en 
dure forever." And after the seven nights, Saint 
Peter appeared to him in the night when he was 
awake and not sleeping, and told him that when 
thirty days were over he should pass away from this 
world. And so it was. When the thirtieth day 
came he bade the bishop, Don Hieronymo, give 
him the body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
And he received it with great devotion. And he 
called upon God and St. Peter, and prayed, and said : 
" I beseech thee pardon me my sins and let my soul 
enter into the light which hath no end." And so 
this noble baron yielded up his soul, which was pure 
and without spot, to God. 

Whether there have been many other such heroes 
as the Cid, it would be hard to say. What is cer- 
tain is that there have been few heroes who have 
been so fortunate in their biography. The poem of 



THE cm. 



161 



the Cid, as has been said, may be more relied upon 
than the chronicle for historical accuracy. The 
chronicle is one of the most charming of the ro- 
mances, having that flavor which no imagination can 
rival, which greets us where the foundation is true. 
English readers have the pleasure of reading the 
chronicle in a translation by Robert Southey, and 
the poem, as it has been rendered by Hookham 
Frere and by Mr. Ormsby. 







CHAPTER XVIII. 

' ALFONSO X. 

Quien no ha visto Sevilla 
No ha visto maravilla. 

SEVILLE was a prosperous port under the Phoeni- 
cians ; and was singularly favored by the Scipios. 
In 45 B.C., Julius Caesar entered the city ; he en- 
larged it, strengthened and fortified it, and thus 
made it a favorite residence with the patricians of 
Rome, several of whom came to live there ; no 
wonder, with its perfect climate and brilliant skies. 
It was then called Hispalis. 

There are still vestiges of its magnificence during 
Roman rule, — an amphitheatre and an aqueduct, — 
and Roman coins are still found by those who dig 
beneath the soil. 

The Vandals, driven from Septimania and the 
north of Spain, made their court in Seville. Anda- 
lusia, we saw, means Vandalicia. They remained 
there until they passed off into Africa to the num- 
ber of eighty thousand, leaving nothing more than a 
name behind them. 

The Goths held Seville for their capital until 
Leovigild established his court at Toledo, and left 
Seville to his rebel son. 

262 



264 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

A year after the defeat of Roderick it resisted for 
a month the attacks of the Moors, under whom, in 
time, it became most prosperous. The capital of the 
Omeyyades was Cordova, but Seville grew in wealth 
and splendor until it became the second city of all 
the brilliant Caliphate. Thousands of industrious 
Moslems were engaged in manufacturing silks and 
other fabrics; its schools and universities rivalled 
those of Cordova. 

This city shared the fate of the rest of Moorish 
Spain, and surrendered to the Christians on the 22d 
of December, 1248. 

This was the achievement of King Ferdinand III., 
under whom the Crowns of castile and Leon had 
become united. His territory extended from the 
Bay of Biscay to the Guadalquivir, and from the 
borders of Portugal as far as Arragon and Valencia. 
His glory was great in the estimation of his country- 
men for his conquests over the Moors, and four 
centuries afterwards he was canonized by the Pope, 
and is now knows as Saint Ferdinand. He was just 
and pious, an able ruler, and a valiant soldier. He 
persecuted heretics with vigor, and was incessant in 
prayers, fasting, and frequent use of the discipline, for 
which virtues he was found worthy of canonization. 

Ferdinand converted the mosque he found in 
Seville into a cathedral, of which, however, little now 
remains of his time. The beautiful Giralda, a bell- 
tower of the present cathedral, is Moorish, and is 
said to have been devised by an Arabic architect 
named Geber, of whom many tales are told. One of 
the portals of the cathedral has on it a great stuffed 



ALFONSO X. 26$ 

crocodile, said to have been sent to Saint Ferdinand 
by the Sultan of Egypt, alive, as a present. 

In the royal chapel of the present cathedral is a 
silver urn with glass sides, which contains the body 
of the saint, carefully preserved. The king is draped 
in his royal robes, with the crown on his head ; his 
hands are crossed upon his breast. On his right lies 
the baston de mando, his sceptre ; on the left, his 
sword. The precious stones, which once adorned the 
handle of the sword, were picked out and taken away 
by order of one of Ferdinand's successors, lest, as he 
said, they might be carried off by somebody else. 

The sepulchre of the saint bears inscriptions in 
Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic, written by the learned 
son of the saint. The body is displayed on certain 
days with a mass and other ceremonies. 

Ferdinand lived at the same time with another 
king who was also canonized — Louis IX. of France, 
who became Saint Louis. He was the true hero of 
his time, a prince as pious as brave, who deserved, if 
ever did earthly sovereign, to be called a saint. The 
two kings, in fact, were cousins, and the grand- 
mother of both of them was Eleanor, daughter of 
Henry II. of England. 

Spain was now taking such an important place 
among the kingdoms of the civilized world, that her 
princes and princesses often made marriages with 
the other royal houses. It may be that the solid 
qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race gave vigor to the 
Southern stock on which these were grafted, to 
produce the admirable combination which after- 
wards, in its most brilliant period, distinguished the 
true Spaniard. 



266 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

The son of Saint Ferdinand was Alfonso X., called 
El Sabio, the learned, and not, as it is sometimes 
translated, " the wise." He certainly was not very- 
wise, for he did an immense number of foolish 
things ; but he was such a strange man, that it 
would be interesting to know more about him than 
it is easy to do. 

It was a period when not only commerce and in- 
dustry but literature and art were taking a new start 
in Europe — the time of Roger Bacon and Dante. 
Alfonso loved his books, and dabbled in science, and 
was really one of the learned men of his time. It 
was a pity that he was born to be a king, and had to 
pass his life amid the cares of state, for he made 
constant and singular mistakes of policy in his gov- 
ernment, while he had to give up to it most of his 
time, which, if he had been a private individual, he 
could have spent in intellectual pursuits more to his 
taste. He laid the foundation of Spanish prose by 
causing a translation of the Bible to be made in that 
language, and by writing excellent Spanish himself. 
His prose is said to be admirable, and his verses to 
have considerable merit, for a king's. He drew up 
a Code of Laws which is celebrated for its wisdom 
and its literary merit ; and wrote a Chronicle of 
Spain, beginning with the creation of the world and 
coming down to the death of Saint Ferdinand, his 
father. It gives many of the romantic traditions of 
his country in a simple and poetic manner. Alfonso 
was learned in mathematics and astronomy. His 
" astronomical tables," for a long time celebrated, 
were probably constructed for him by Moorish as- 
tronomers whom he invited to his court. 



..s i 




DIE GIRALDA. 
267 



268 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

All these things give a delightful idea of Alfonso 
"the Wise," but, unfortunately, he managed the 
affairs of his kingdom so unwisely as to irritate his 
subjects at the time and bring trouble upon his 
descendants. 

His mind was very naturally disturbed by a 
glimpse he had of being emperor of Germany, a 
position which had been the most glorious one to 
be attained in Europe. The dignity was elective, 
and at that time the electors, for reasons they con- 
sidered good, had resolved to make choice of a 
foreign prince. The mother of Alfonso was the 
daughter of a German emperor ; this led some of 
the electors to turn their thoughts upon Alfonso as 
a candidate. He aspired to the dignity, and was 
willing to lavish wealth upon obtaining it. He was, 
i indeed, chosen by one party, but another, and more 
powerful one, preferred to name Richard, the brother 
of the English King Henry III. The contest lasted 
a long time until another emperor was elected, when, 
having wasted much time and money, having tired 
out everybody with his persistence, and after the 
Pope, losing all patience, had excommunicated his 
few adherents, King Alfonso returned to his boojks. 
-), Ferdinand de la Cerda, the son and heir of Alfonso, 
died during the lifetime of his father, and a difficulty 
arose about the succession which extended over a 
longtime. A Cortes was assembled to decide the 
question, and it was agreed that Sancho, brother to 
Ferdinand de la Cerda should be heir to the crown, 
to the exclusion of the children of Ferdinand, grand- 
children of Alfonso. This decision displeased the 



ALFONSO X. 269 

king of France, for the mother of these children thus , 
left out of the succession was his sister Blanche, a 
French princess, and he considered that one of them, 
his eldest nephew, ought to have the crown. Al- 
fonso, who had written a book full of laws, ought to 
have known the rights of the question. He declared 
in favor of his son Sancho, and came near having a 
war with France in consequence. Alfonso, whose 
only wish seemed to be to please everybody, now 
proposed to divide his kingdom in favor of the young 
princes ; he made himself also very unpopular by 
debasing the coin of the realm, and Sancho was per- 
suaded to rebel against his father. The king in vain 
tried to pacify the rebels by promising to satisfy all 
his demands ; then he applied for aid and sympathy 
to all the kings in the neighborhood, in vain, for 
they had agreed to remain neutral, except the king 
of Morocco, who was willing to be on his side. 

At last the goaded king assembled his few remain- 
ing adherents in Seville, and, in a solemn act, not 
only disinherited his rebel son Sancho, but called 
down maledictions on his head. In the same act he 
instituted his grandsons, the infantes de la Cerda, 
as his heirs, and after them, in default of issue, ./the 
kings of France. 

Luckily the Pope now interfered on the side of 
the king, although he must have been worn out with 
the trouble he had with him, first and last. He 
threatened to excommunicate Sancho and all the 
rebels if they did not return to their duty. This put 
matters on a better footing ; even Sancho was in the 
way of asking for a reconciliation, when he fell ill, 



2/0 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

which moved his old father so much that he forgot 
all about his displeasure and his malediction, and 
could do nothing but weep and lament over the sad 
state of his son. He was, in fact, so much affected 
that his anxiety threw him into a worse state than 
that of the rebellious prince. Sancho recovered and 
was soon as well as ever ; but the king grew worse, 
and soon died, full of grief and affection for his son. 
He had not, however, revoked his will. 

Nobody minded the will, and Sancho was pro- 
claimed king. He reigned, and his son and grand- 
son reigned after him. In the next generation it 
happened that the succession to the crown came 
back to the descendants of the La Cerdas, about 
whom so much trouble had been made. 

A saying has been quoted against King Alfonso 
that " if he had been consulted at the creation of 
the world, he could have advised some things for the 
better." If this saying were really uttered, which 
there are strong reasons to doubt, it is probable that 
the king had no blasphemous intention in view, but 
that he was merely ridiculing the system, then re- 
ceived, of Ptolemy. 

Alfonso reigned from 1252 to 1284. 

The picture of the dreaming king, so absorbed in 
his books, so pleased with the society of his Arabic 
astronomers, that he let his kingdom slip through 
his hands, is pleasanter than that furnished a century 
later by another king of Castile, Pedro the Cruel, as 
he was very justly called, unless he has been greatly 
misrepresented. 

The beautiful Alcazar at Seville was his favorite 



ALFONSO X. 271 

palace. It is Moorish, and ornamented with the 
graceful horseshoe arch and lace-like arabesque work 
the Moors employed. Saint Ferdinand found it a 
pleasant place to establish himself in when he captured 
the city, and there his son Alfonso may have studied 
the stars in the large gardens which surrounded the 
palace, or pacing the arched gallery running along 
the enclosure. 

Don Pedro enlarged the alcazar, rebuilt and em- 
bellished it, but he left the records of a crime in 
almost every room in the palace. 

He came to the throne when he was but sixteen 
years old, on the death of his father, who left behind 
him, besides the prince Pedro, his rightful heir, a 
whole family of children, both sons and daughters, 
who were half-brothers and sisters of Pedro. For the 
Christian kings, as well as the Moslem ones, often 
made the question of succession a cause of quarrel- 
ling by having two or more families of children 
whose mothers were different. The Moslem law 
allows two wives at least ; the Christian furnishes no 
such excuse. 

In this case there was no love lost between the 
half-brothers, children of Alfonso XL Pedro hated 
Fadrique and Enrique, or Henry, as it is easier to 
call him, and they, it may be supposed, returned the 
hatred with the added bitterness of those who are 
oppressed. But Pedro seems to have had a passion 
for killing and murdering, even when he had no 
excuse, if there ever is any. 

The catalogue of those who died by his orders is 
too long and dreary to repeat. 



272 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



Pedro loved, in his violent and cruel way, a very- 
beautiful lady of the court, named Maria de Padilla ; 
but in compliance with the request of his Cortes, he 
agreed that an embassy should be sent to the French 
king asking for his wife a princess of his royal house 




DOOR IN THE ALCAZAR. 



This alliance, to confirm harmonious relations be- 
tween the two countries, was approved of by the 
French, and Blanche of Bourbon was sent to Spain, 
poor thing. Her father was Peter of Bourbon, and 
from that house afterwards sprang the royal line of 
the French Bourbons, 



ALFONSO X. 273 

The ceremony of marriage took place with due 
splendor, but only two days afterwards, Don Pedro, 
the king, left his youthful bride, nor did she see 
much of her husband ever afterwards. 

According to the legends of the time Pedro con- 
ceived a hatred for his French bride, which was 
brought about by enchantment, attributed to Maria 
de Padilla, who was afraid of losing her influence on «**<•* 
the king, if his young wife should prove attractive. 

" The young queen had given to her new spouse 
the most beautiful girdle of gold, ornamented with 
many gems and precious stones, and this girdle 
Pedro was pleased to wear out of his new love for 
Blanche, the giver. But Maria, jealous of the queen, 
managed to put the girdle into the hands of a Jew, 
who was a magician, and he so affected it for the 
worse that on a certain feast day, when the king 
went to put it on, in the sight of every one present, 
instead of a belt he was girded about by a horrible j^jr-jj 
serpent. From that moment Pedro held the queen 
in abhorrence." v ^t v^J «, 

However this may be, the unfortunate Queen 
Blanche was shut up in prison, where no one was 
allowed to see her, and afterwards taken to Toledo, 
where, also, she was kept in strict confinement. Her 
guards there allowed her to go to service in the 
cathedral, where her appearance so interested the 
congregation in her favor that they all resolved to 
protect her at the risk of their lives and fortunes, 
and she was at once rescued from her keepers. 
Pedro marched on Toledo as soon as he heard the 
news, to seize the princess but she was no longer 



$\<u fa 



274 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

a prisoner ; the whole city had taken her part, and 
placed her under a strong guard in the palace of 
their kings. 

The half-brothers of the king, and the defenders of 
Blanche, formed so strong a league against the king, 
that Pedro had to pretend that he had softened tow- 
ards his wife and meant to live with her, but he had 
not the faintest intention of so doing. The unfor- 
tunate Blanche was transferred, not to his palace 
to be queen, but to a strong fortress, where she long 
remained a prisoner, and in 1 361, was there killed 
by the order of her husband, whether by poison or 
steel is still unknown. 

Pedro caused his half-brother, Fadrique, to be 
killed in the very palace of the alcazar, in a patio 
where still are shown the marks of his blood, upon 
the pavement, if marks of blood they may be. 

The ballad that describes the death of Fadrique 
is one of the best in Lockhart's rather poor collec- 
tion. It begins as* if told by the murdered man 
himself : 






I sat alone in Corinbra, the town myself had ta'en, 
When came into my chamber, a messenger from Spain ; 
There was no treason in his look, an honest look he wore ; 
I from his hand the letter took ; my brother's seal it bore. 

Then it tells how the letter was a friendly invi- 
tation for him to come to the tournament at Seville, 
and how Fadrique, with joyful heart, started to 
accept the invitation, not heeding " a man of God," 
who stood in the gateway at Seville to warn him not 
to enter ; how he came to the palace, and greeted 
his brother, who spurned him from him ; and then, — 




AVIGORNAGNA, BILBAO. 
275 



2J6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

the story as told by Fadrique himself suddenly stops 
short ; and another voice, as it were, relates how the 
head of the master was brought before the eyes 
of Maria de Padilla, who had demanded it of the 
king. 

To complete the occasion, the tyrant sent orders 
for the execution of several knights in various cities 
of the kingdom, and, it is said, insisted that day in 
dining in the very room in which lay the bleeding 
corpse of his murdered brother. 

Such deeds roused the hostility of the French. 
Arragon also, now a powerful state, was already in 
arms against him ; and Pedro in defence sought the 
alliance of the English king, Edward III., and the 
Black Prince, who were his relatives ; for the sister 
of Alfonso X. married Edward I. of England. 

Edward III., as every English or American boy 
should know, had large possessions in France. He 
had even the French king shut up in a prison in Lon- 
don ; but besides that, much territory, the best half of 
France in fact, belonged to him, either by inheritance 
or the triumph of his arms. He owed these triumphs 
in a great measure to his noble son, the Black Prince, 
so called on account of the color of his favorite armor, 
who fought with such prowess at the battle of Poic- 
tiers and afterwards, that he was the hero of the 
day. 

The Black Prince spent most of his time in his 
French possessions, where he had a large army to 
guard them. He was, in fact, born in Bordeaux, and 
this was his favorite city. He maintaind his court 
there with aU the splendor of a monarch. Scattered 



ALFONSO X. 27} 

about in the Pyrenees, there are still standing castles 
built by the English at that time, and inhabited by 
the followers of the Black Prince. 

This redoubtable hero accepted the cause of his 
distant cousin, Pedro ; on the other hand, Charles V., 
of France, took sides against the tyrant, with Henry, 
his half-brother, called Henry of Trastamara. Charles 
had just come to the throne, through the death of his 
father in London, and longed to avenge the death of 
the French Princess in Spain. The famous Bertrand 
du Guesclin was on this side of the contest, and also 
the king of Navarre. 

Henry was joyfully received at Seville, and ac- 
knowledged as king by the whole of Andalusia. His 
direct claim to the throne was but feeble, for Pedro 
was the undoubted heir to their father's kingdom, 
but he had married a granddaughter of one of the 
Infantes de la Cerda, whose fate had made so much 
discussion in their day. This recommended him to 
the favor of the French court. 

With treasure found in Seville, from which Pedro 
had fled, and with powerful allies, the cause of 
Henry seemed to prosper, but nothing could resist 
the mighty prowess of the Black Prince. Pedro, for 
whom he was arming, went about stabbing and poi- 
soning as usual, without looking deep into his affairs, 
but early in the spring of 1367, Prince Edward crossed 
the Pyrenees, at Roncesvalles, with an army of Nor- 
mans and Gascons, and some of the flower of Eng- 
lish chivalry. 

The great battle of Navarrete was fought on the 
3d of April, 1367. The struggle was desperate ; the 



2j8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

war-cry of " Guienne and St. George ! " on the one 
side, and on the other that of " Castile and San- 
tiago ! " were drowned by the clash of arms, the 
shouts of the victors, and the groans of the dying. 

Both the brothers fought bravely ; Henry was 
dauntless, and Pedro was as daring as he was 
cruel. The victory was with the cause of the 
rightful sovereign of Castile. 

Such a splendid success has not often been found 
in history ; it restored Pedro at one to the Castilian 
throne ; and this he owed to the assistance of the 
English prince. But this victorious ally met with 
little gratitude ; it was with great difficulty that he 
induced Pedro to pay any of the money due to the 
troops. The humane English prince, moreover, was 
disgusted at the desire the restored king showed to 
shed the blood of their prisoners. 

He refused to do so, and reproached the tyrant 
for the wish. 

" What was the use of your helping me, then ? " 
asked Pedro, with apparent simplicity. " If I do not 
kill these rebels, they will go back to Henry, and it 
will be all to do over again." 

Edward did not stay long with this bloodthirsty 
cousin-Spanish. He made peace between the kings 
of Castile and Arragon, admonished Pedro to obtain 
the love of his people, and went back to his life 
in Guienne. 

Pedro proceeded to Toledo, where he put to death 
obnoxious individuals, and far from following the ad- 
vice of Edward, made himself more and more un- 
popular. The Black Prince, ever after, let him alone, 
and the arms of Henry were everywhere successful. 



ALFONSO X. 279 

It was by treachery, however, that the king fell 
into the hands of the enemy. Pedro was persuaded 
to come into the tent of du Guesclin, who was fight- 
ing for Henry, and there the half-brothers met. 

It is said that when Henry entered, he did not 
at first recognize his brother, so much had he altered 
in a few years. 

" There is your enemy," said an attendant. 

"I am! I am!" cried Pedro, seeing that he was 
betrayed. The brothers grappled like lions, and 
Pedro was slain. 

" Henry and King Pedro clasping 

Hold in straining arms each other ; 
Tugging hard, and closely grasping, 

Brother proves his strength with brother, 



" Thus with mortal gasp and quiver, 
While the blood in bubbles welled, 
Fled the fiercest soul that ever 
In a Christian bosom dwelled." 

This was the end of the bloody reign of Don 
Pedro the Cruel. If he was not the violent and sav- 
age character generally represented, he has been 
much maligned by his chroniclers. 

Henry of Trastamara now reigned. In this house 
a century later, the crown of Arragon became united 
with that of Castile, making the whole of Spain, 
with the exception of Granada, into one kingdom. 
To tell why Portugal, occupying the rest of the 
Peninsula, has always been a separate country, with 
a different language, belongs to some other story. 



28o THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

A daughter of Pedro the Cruel, named Con- 
stance, married John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lan- 
caster, a brother of the Black Prince. This duke 
assumed, after the death of Henry of Trastamara, the 
title of king of Castile, and prepared to invade the 
kingdom. In 1 386, the duke actually left England with 
about fifteen hundred knights, accompanied by his 
wife, the Princess Constance of Castile, as a visible 
witness to his claim to the crown. He was solemnly 
proclaimed king of Castile and Leon at Santiago. 

The progress of his arms met with little success, 
and was stayed by the plague, which made ravages 
in their ranks. The duke became discouraged and 
retired. The matter was compounded by agree- 
ments of marriage, by which Catharine, the little 
daughter of the Plantagenet, and granddaughter of 
Pedro the Cruel, was united to the son of the king 
of Castile. 








CHAPTER XIX. 



ARRAGON. 



WITHOUT going into detail as to the precise boun- 
daries of the petty Spanish kingdoms at different 
periods, it will be enough if the reader will remem- 
ber that, roughly speaking, the kingdom of Castile, 
at the beginning of the fifteenth century, embraced 
the northwestern part of Spain, including the long 
coast which borders on the 'Bay of Biscay, and bor- 
dering on the kingdom of Portugal. The kingdom 
of Arragon, in the same way, had absorbed into itself 
all the petty states of the northeast of Spain, with 
the exception of Navarre. That little kingdom, 
brave to audacity, quite self-sufficient, but none the 
less aggressive, made itself an uncomfortable neigh- 
bor to the French upon the north, and to the 
province of what we may call Spaniards proper, on 
the south. The ports of Arragon were those of the 
Mediterranean, by which, as we saw, Spain had made 
her early acquaintance with the civilization of Rome, 
Greece, and the further East. From the seaports of 
Catalonia and Valencia, there sailed a race of brave 
seamen, not over scrupulous perhaps, who traded 
with all the ports of the Mediterranean, and even 
pushed their conquests, as enterprising merchants 

281 



282 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

will, wherever adventure or profit required. By the 
achievements of such navigators, the monarchs of 
Arragon became the lords of Majorca, Minorca, and 
Ivica, which are still dependencies of the Spanish 
crown. They also acquired a sovereignty over Sar- 
dinia and Sicily, islands which, in the decay of 
Spain's power, have fallen from her wasted hand. 
In the farther East, some of the achievements of the 
Catalonian fleets were to the last degree daring and 
chivalrous. Roger de Flor, in the year 1303, in a 
well-equipped fleet of twenty-two vessels, came to 
the relief of the hard-pressed Greek emperor in Con- 
stantinople. The grateful emperor gave him his 
niece in marriage, and made him admiral of Rou- 
mania. He led his Catalans across the Propontis 
into Asia ; they slew thirty thousand Moslems in two 
battles. He raised the siege of Philadelphia, and 
was called the deliverer of Asia. In a series of in- 
trigues which followed, in which the Catalans as- 
sumed every thing, Roger received the title of 
Caesar, the highest title under the emperors. But 
he now had awakened such terror that the Imperial 
guard revenged themselves by his assassination. By 
a similar dash, an army of Catalans, amounting to 
eight thousand men, took possession of Athens, and 
till the close of the fourteenth century, Athens was 
an appanage of the kings of Sicily. 

But, as often happens in greater and in less con- 
cerns than these, the ruler whose sway was so grand 
at a distance, found himself strictly hampered at 
home. An old writer said of Arragon, at that time, 
that there were as many kings there as there were 



ARRAGON. 283 

rich men. There was no moment in all this history 
the gentry or nobility of Arragon did not maintain 
their haughty independence, and the twelve peers of 
Arragon call themselves " great men, ur rich men, by 
nature," implying that they did not receive their no- 
bility from any sovereign. 

In 1410, the throne of Arragon became vacant by 
the death of King Martin, without direct heirs. 
The nation referred the question of succession to a 
committee of judges, and they gave it to Ferdinand 
of Castile, not as king, but as regent for his little 
nephew. 

This brought the sceptre of Arragon, which, for 
more than two centuries had descended in the family 
of Barcelona, into the same Trastamara family which 
was ruling over the Castilian monarchy. 

The son of this Ferdinand was Alfonso V., who 
was very little at home in his kingdom of Arragon, 
because he had acquired for himself another king- 
dom, that of Naples. He went there at the request 
of Joanna, then Queen of Naples, to defend her from 
her enemies. She adopted him, and bequeathed to 
him her kingdom, which he kept, although she after- 
wards changed her mind about the succession. These 
matters entirely absorbed King Alfonso, who, like 
many another, was carried away by the lovely cli- 
mate of Naples, and the intellectual cultivation which 
prevailed at that court. He left the affairs of Arra- 
gon in the hands of his brother, John, with whom we 
have now to do. It is confusing that his name 
should be John, for the little king at Castile was also 
John, having, indeed, been named for him. 



284 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

John of Arragon was married to Blanche, a princess 
of Navarre, by whom he had three children, destined 
to cause much trouble to their father, themselves, 
and the world in general. 

Carlos, the son, by right inherited the crown of 
Navarre from his mother, the princess Blanche. It 
was a little kingdom, as we have seen, a bone of con- 
tention for the greater powers which surrounded it. 
France at the north and the united provinces of Spain 
on the other side of it could never let it alone. Its 
princes were sometimes most closely connected with 
the one kingdom, sometimes with the other, without 
the possibility of any thing like independence. Never- 
theless, the kings of Navarre held on to their posses- 
sions with as much tenacity as if they had been 
larger ; and Carlos, as was natural, enjoyed to the 
full his titles and lands. This was all very well, until 
John, the father, married a second time, thus in- 
troducing a step-rrjother into the family. His new 
wife was Joan Henriques, of the blood royal of Castile, 
a woman much younger than himself, of high spirit 
and unprincipled ambition. She soon obtained great 
influence over her husband, and when, in due time, 
on the 10th of March, 1452, her son Ferdinand was 
born, the interests of the other children were worse 
than neglected, for they were encroached upon. This 
infant was to grow to be Ferdinand, the husband of 
Isabella. He was born in the little town of Sos. One 
of the flatterers of the next generation says that " the 
sun, which had been obscured with clouds during the 
whole day, suddenly broke forth with unwonted splen- 
dor, A crown was also beheld in the sky, composed 



ARRAGON. 285 

of various brilliant colors, like those of a rainbow." 
Yet, at his birth, as a younger brother of the heir, 
there was no visible crown waiting for his head. 

Not long after, Joan, the step-mother, went to Na- 
varre to set things to rights there, as she regarded 
them. She made herself very disagreeable to the 
young king, as step-mothers do in story books, and 
irritated or aggravated him to such an extent, that 
she left the palace of her step-children, and retired to 
another. 

Navarre, at that time, was divided by two power- 
ful families, who were always at discord — the Beau- 
monts and the Agramonts. The Beaumonts were 
the partisans of the Prince of Viana, for this was the 
title of Carlos, the young king of Navarre. They 
worked upon his naturally gentle temper, and urged 
him to assume the sovereignty which was his by 
right. The Agramonts, partly, doubtless, in order to 
disagree with the Beaumonts, vehemently espoused 
the cause of the queen. Thus, the two factions, in 
the enjoyment of their own time-honored quarrel, 
fostered and encouraged the differences in the royal 
family. 

Carlos had two young sisters, Blanche and Eleanor, 
who shared his resentment at the intrusion of Joanna, 
and who made things as unpleasant as two young 
ladies can under such circumstances. 

Carlos even besieged his step-mother in the castle 
of Estella, to which she had withdrawn. His father 
was forced to send a small body of troops to suppress 
the revolt. The two angry factions of Navarre joined 
the opposing sides, according to their prejudices ; the 



286 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

young prince found himself a prisoner, after a well- 
contested action. 

Carlos was released after many months of cap- 
tivity, and after a little while decided to seek an 
asylum with his uncle, Alfonso the V., at Naples, 
in order to refer to him his difficulties with his 
father. 

On his passage through France, and the various 
courts of Italy, the Prince of Viana was received 
with the greatest attention, which was due to his 
rank, and which his attractive personal appearance, 
his youth, and his misfortune ensured to him. His 
uncle in Naples received him warmly, and showed 
him all the sympathy and affection which he had 
anticipated. As Alfonso was really king of Arragon, 
and had a right to say how the affairs of that king- 
dom should be conducted, his influence with his 
brother would be great in reference to Navarre, 
therefore his protection might reasonably encourage 
Carlos to hope for the best issue to his anxieties 
about his crown. Just then, unfortunately, Alfonso 
died, of a fever, in Naples, destroying the hopes of 
the young prince. The dying Alfonso bequeathed 
his dominions in Spain to his brother John, who had 
so long been ruling there in his stead. Naples he 
left to his son Ferdinand. 

This prince was of a dark, gloomy character, in 
contrast to the frank and courteous bearing of Car- 
los, who in his short stay at Naples had so won the 
affections of the nobles there, that a large party of them 
eagerly pressed the latter to assert his title to the va- 
cant throne. Carlos had the good sense to resist this 



ARRAGOM. 287 

proposal. He passed over into Sicily, where his 
welcome was of the warmest, for his mother Blanche 
had once lived there, as queen, and the recollection 
of her kindly rule was still fresh in the memory of 
the people. He was, it is said, urged to assume the 
sovereignty of that island, but Carlos rejected this 
temptation ; passing his time in the society of 
learned men, with the facilities of an extensive 
library, belonging to a convent near Messina, for- 
getting the cares and annoyances of his late years in 
the study of philosophy and history. 

In the meantime, John and Joanna had full control 
in Arragon and Navarre, but reports of the popularity 
of Carlos in Sicily came to them in due time, and 
they began to be alarmed lest he should accept the 
offers of sovereignty which had been made to him 
there. They wrote him, therefore, urging him to 
return, with promise of full reconciliation. Carlos 
decided to return, contrary to the advice of his 
wisest counsellors in Sicily. 

Barcelona, which had been very indignant at the 
persecution of a prince whom every one loved, made 
the most brilliant preparations for his reception, but 
the prince, fearing that such an ovation would irritate 
his father, avoided going there until after his first in- 
terview with the king and queen, in which he con- 
ducted himself with unfeigned humility and peni- 
tence. They, on their part, received him with a 
cordiality which, if not genuine, was the result of 
consummate dissimulation. 

It was now confidently expected by every one that 
John would hasten to acknowledge his son's title as 



288 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

heir-apparent to the crown of Arragon. But nothing 
was further from the monarch's intention. He in- 
deed summoned the Cortes for the purpose of re- 
ceiving their homage himself, but he expressly refused 
their request to perform the same ceremony to the 
Prince of Viana, or to allow him to be addressed as 
successor to the crown. 

Such conduct on the part of John was evidently 
due to the counsels of Queen Joanna. Not only 
had Carlos deeply offended her, but she regarded 
him with hatred as the insuperable obstacle to the 
advancement of her own child Ferdinand. As her 
influence over her husband was unbounded, she had 
succeeded in alienating him entirely from all the 
children of his first marriage. His affections were 
now all centred upon the little Ferdinand, and he 
was willing to believe all the artful suggestions of 
the queen likely to shut his heart wholly against 
his oldest son. 

Convinced at length that there was no use in ex- 
pecting consideration from his father, Carlos looked 
about for aid in other quarters, to restore him to his 
rights in Navarre, at least, without present consider- 
ation of the succession to the throne of Arragon. 
He was offered the hand of Isabella, the sister of 
Henry of Castile, an alliance in every respect most 
desirable for him, as it would ensure him the protec- 
tion of this house. But this scheme suited not at 
all his parents, for they wanted Isabella for their 
darling Ferdinand. Their plan was more suitable as 
to the age of the young people, and it had long been 
the object of their policy. That Carlos should thus 



ARRAGON. 



289 



cross their wishes was a new offence. He was ar- 
rested and placed in strict confinement, with no ex- 
planation whatever. 

All classes received this intelligence with surprise 
and consternation. Deputations were sent to the 
king requesting to know the nature of the crimes 
imputed to his son. The answers of John were 




SARAGOSSA. 



vague, darkly hinting a suspicion of conspiracy by 
his son against his life. 

The whole kingdom was thrown into a ferment. 
The Catalans rose almost to a man, and marched so 
promptly on Frega, where John and his queen had 
taken refuge, that they had barely time to make 
their escape. The insurrection spread over the 
country. The king of Castile, aided by the Beau- 
monts, supported the cause of Carlos in Navarre. 

John, alarmed at the tempest, saw the necessity 



290 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

of releasing Carlos from the inaccessible fortress in 
which he was secured, and he affected to do this at 
the urgent request of the queen, hoping thus to les- 
sen her unpopularity. She therefore accompanied 
the prince on his way from his prison to Barcelona. 
He was everywhere greeted with enthusiasm by the 
people of the villages thronging out to meet him. 
He entered the capital with a welcome such as 
might be given to a conqueror ; but the queen, 
having been informed that her presence in the city 
would not be tolerated, thought it more prudent f&t 
i%r to remain at a distance. 

The Catalans insisted that Carlos should be pub- 
licly acknowledged as the heir and successor to the 
crown, and John accepted these conditions with ap- 
parent cheerfulness. Carlos, happy in the enthusi- 
astic attachment of a brave and powerful people, 
seemed now to have reached the end of his troubles. 

At this very clo^e of his trials, he fell ill of a fever, 
and soon died, on the 23d of September, 1461, in the 
forty-first year of his age. So opportune a death, 
for the wishes of Joanna, led to plentiful suspicions 
of poisoning, but there is no sort of proof of it. 

Carlos, in his will, bequeathed the crown of Navarre, 
in conformity with the original marriage contract of 
his parents, to his sister Blanche and her posterity. 

Thus, in the prime of life, died the Prince of 
Viana, just at the moment when the tide of his 
fortunes seemed to have turned in his favor. His 
early act of rebellion had been requited by the mis- 
fortunes which followed it, and the harsh conduct of 
his father gave him the sympathy of all. 



ARRAGOiV. 29I 

He is described as " somewhat above the middle 
stature, having a thin visage, with a serene and 
modest expression of countenance, and withal some- 
what inclined to melancholy." Another description 
says : " Such were his temperance and moderation, 
such the excellence of his breeding, and such the 
sweetness of his demeanor, that no one thing 
seemed to be wanting in him which belongs to a 
true and perfect prince." He was fairly skilful in 
music and painting, wrote poetry, and was the friend 
of some of the eminent bards of his time. 

Carlos dead, Joanna the step-mother transferred 
her ill-will to Blanche, who, as heiress to the crown 
of Navarre, became the object of her jealousy. 
Blanche had been long married to Henry IV. of 
Castile, but was separated from him, and lived by 
herself in Navarre. Her father, instigated by his 
wife, thought to get rid of Blanche by taking her 
into France, on the pretext of making a new mar- 
riage for her. Blanche feared to be taken away 
from her friends, and besought the king not to de- 
liver her into the hands of her enemies, but in vain • 
she was forcibly conveyed across the mountains. At 
a little town on the French side of the Pyrenees, 
being convinced that she had nothing further to hope 
from human aid, she formally renounced her rights to 
Navarre in favor of her former husband, Henry of 
Castile, also her cousin. She wrote him a touching 
letter, reminding him of their mutual happiness in 
earlier days, and of her subsequent misfortunes, and 
then, predicting the gloomy destiny which awaited 
her, she settled on him her inheritance of Navarre. 



292 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

The reason she feared so much was that she was 
on her way to the keeping of the Count of Foix, up 
among the mountains. The Countess of Foix was 
Eleanor, her only sister, and the last remaining mem- 
ber of her mother's family ; but Eleanor was her 
enemy, for if Blanche was out of the way she herself 
expected to be the queen of Navarre, having received 
the promise of it from her father, John of Arragon. 
Blanche feared, with too good reason, to be deliv- 
ered into the power of her heartless sister, for on 
the very day she wrote the sad little letter to her 
former husband, she was taken to the gloomy cha- 
teau of Orthez, in Beam, on a plateau above deep 
ravines, surrounded by a triple wall. 

Here the counts of Foix used to live in great 
splendor, as Froissart says, " getting up at noon, and 
supping at midnight ; when the count left his cham- 
ber to go to table, before him were twelve lighted 
torches borne by Jwelve vajlets, and these twelve 
torches were held by the varlets before his table, 
which gave a great light to the hall, which was full 
of knights and squires, and the tables were always 
dressed with supper for whoever wished to sup." 

Poor Blanche saw nothing of such revelry, being 
immured in a dungeon, where she languished for two 
years, poisoned in the end by the command of her sister. 

This cruel Countess of Foix reigned in Navarre, 
after the death of her father. She had her wish, but 
she died herself after three weeks of royalty, and 
the crown was taken from her family by Ferdinand, 
for whose sake his father sacrificed so much, and 
stained his own memory with so many crimes. 




CHATEAU DE BELLEGARDE. 



293 



294 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

In the end, however, we come to pity the King of 
Arragon, w r hose unkindness to his children, after 
all, was his chief fault, and this was caused by the 
malign influence of Joanna, and his exceeding love 
for her son Ferdinand. 

His Catalans turned against him and found power- 
ful support among outside allies, to one and another 
of whom they offered the crown of Arragon, among 
others to Rene the Good, of Anjou. This king is 
best known to modern readers, perhaps, from Scott's 
amusing picture of him in Anne of Geierstein. Rene 
intrusted his claims to his son, the Duke of Lorraine, 
who, with a spirited army, crossed the Pyrenees and 
pushed King John hard in Arragon. In two cam- 
paigns the French duke held his own. 

The exchequer of King John ran low. The King 
of France who had promised to be on his side, was 
Louis XL, a monarch by no means sure to be as 
good as his word. ( John found himself unable to 
raise money for his troops. His daughter Eleanor, 
the Countess of Foix, now demanded the crown of 
Navarre, which he had promised her only at his death; 
and worst of all, since it is personal suffering which 
makes it hard to bear the misfortunes of our state, 
his eyesight, long impaired by exposure, now failed 
him altogether. He was no longer young ; he 
had lived an emotional, adventurous life, and now 
when he would have liked repose, repose was far 
from him, for on every hand there was difficulty to 
encounter. 

It might be that in those hours of darkness he 
should sigh for the gentle presence of Carlos, always 



ARRAGON. 295 

as a little boy, sweet and amiable, and recall the 
prattle of Blanche and Eleanor, children at his knee. 
All gone — all dead before him, and not by the natural 
course of events, but through the violence of his will. 

His intrepid wife in this extremity put herself at 
the head of their armies to check the operations of 
the enemy, and his only remaining son Ferdinand 
fought bravely against the insurgents. His ardor 
nearly proved fatal to the young prince, for he was 
once almost in the hands of the enemy, but he was 
saved by the devotion of his own officers who threw 
themselves between him and the pursuing party, so 
that he escaped at the sacrifice of their liberty. 

In the winter of 1468" the queen, Joanna Hen- 
riques, died by a painful disorder from which she had 
suffered for years. In many respects she was the 
most remarkable woman of her time. She took an 
active part in the politics of her husband, and, in- 
deed, directed them. She conducted some important 
diplomatic negotiations to a happy issue, and dis- 
played even capacity for military affairs. Her perse- 
cution of her step-son Carlos is the worst stain resting 
upon her memory. It was, indeed, the cause of all 
her husband's subsequent misfortunes. 

Still, her great spirit and the resources of her 
genius supplied him with courage and means of sur- 
mounting the difficulties in which she had involved 
him, so that her loss at this crisis left him at once 
without solace or support. 

A physician of the Hebrew race persuaded the 
king to submit to the then universal operation of 
couching, and succeeded in restoring sight to one of 



296 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

his eyes. The Jew, who like the Arabs, was a firm 
believer in astrology, refused to operate upon the 
other eye, because, he said, the planets wore a malig- 
nant aspect. But John, who was above the super- 
stitions of his age, compelled the physician to repeat 
his experiment, which proved completely successful. 
Thus, although now nearly eighty years old, the 
brave king regained his energy and good spirits, and 
resumed operations against the enemy with his 
ancient vigor. 

The Duke of Lorraine, John of Calabria, died 
of a fell disease while at the head of his troops. 
The old king, Rene, wore garlands and wrote poetry, 
while his daughter, the unfortunate Margaret of 
Anjou, followed the falling fortunes of the Red 
Rose of Lancaster. 

By extraordinary efforts John assembled a compe- 
tent force, and besides other vigorous measures, he 
instituted a close blockade of Barcelona, by sea and 
land. 

The inhabitants made one desperate effort in a 
sally against the royal forces, but the civic militia 
were soon broken, and the loss of four thousand 
men, killed and prisoners, warned the insurgents to 
desist. 

At length, reduced to the last extremity, they 
consented to enter into negotiations, which were 
concluded by a treaty equally honorable to both par- 
ties. A general amnesty was granted for all offences. 
Those citizens who should refuse to renew their al- 
legiance to their ancient sovereign within a year, 
might have the liberty of removing with their effects 



ARRA GON. 297 

wherever they pleased. It was agreed, in spite of 
all that had passed, that the king should cause the 
inhabitants of Barcelona to be proclaimed through- 
out all his dominions, good, faithful, and loyal sub- 
jects, which was accordingly done. 

The king, after these preliminaries had been ad- 
justed to general satisfaction, declining the triumphal 
car which had been prepared for him, made his en- 
trance into the city by the gate of St. Anthony, 
mounted upon a white charger. As he rode along 
the principal streets, the sight of so many pallid 
countenances and wasted figures, bespeaking the ex- 
tremity of famine, "smote his heart with sorrow," 
says a contemporary. He then proceeded to the 
hall of the great palace, and solemnly swore there to 
respect the constitution and laws of Catalonia. 

Thus ended this long disastrous civil war, which 
nearly cost the King of Arragon the fairest portion of 
his dominions. Its result in the end was to estab- 
lish the succession of Ferdinand over the whole of 
the realms of his ancestors ; thus, by his marriage 
with Isabella of Castile, bringing the whole of Chris- 
tian Spain under one sceptre. 



°CCJ©^^S|<?>^>©?>»» 




CHAPTER XX. 

FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 

In the union of the two crowns of Castile and Arra- 
gon by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and 
in the extinction of the old rivalries and civil wars 
for the moment, it was for the first time for genera- 
tions possible for the nation to make any head 
against the Moors. The result, in the famous reign 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, gave to the nation the 
most brilliant period of its history. The marriage 
had been proposed when the Prince of Arragon and 
the Princess of Castile were both very young. But 
many an intrigue and misadventure had made it im- 
probable after it was proposed, and it was not until 
the year 1469, when Ferdinand was seventeen years 
old, and Isabella a year older, that they were mar- 
ried. 

As we have seen, Ferdinand of Arragon was re- 
garded from his birth as a very important personage, 
and his father and mother sacrificed every thing to 
his future greatness. Isabella of Castile, on the 
other hand, began life with no pretensions to royalty. 
On the death of her father her brother Henry came 
to the throne, and Isabella retired with her mother 
into seclusion, where she was carefully instructed in 

298 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 



299 



those lessons of practical piety and in the deep rev- 
erence for "religion"which distinguished her maturer 
years. 

Many offers of marriage were made for her ; she 




» ISABELLA. 

was betrothed to Carlos, the Prince of Viana, when 
she was but a child ; when she was only thirteen, 
her brother, the king, promised her to the old king 
of Portugal, but Isabella absolutely refused the mar- 
riage. 



300 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

A brother of the English king, a brother of the 
French king, and other suitors were proposed to the 
young princess, after it was pretty clear that she 
would inherit the throne from her brother, on ac- 
count of his having no legitimate heir. The person 
among all these aspirants on whom she turned a 
favorable eye, was her kinsman, Ferdinand of Arra- 
gon. Every argument of policy was in favor of a 
union between two houses so near each other, speak- 
ing the same language, of the same religion, and the 
same ambitions and objects. Arguments of a more 
tender nature influenced Isabella. Ferdinand was 
then in the bloom of life, and distinguished for his 
good looks. From his boyhood he had displayed a 
chivalrous valor, combined with a maturity of judg- 
ment beyond his years. He had been trained in 
hardships and in war. He delighted in physical 
exercises, was fond of field sports, excelled in horse- 
manship, was temperate and active in his habits of 
life. Isabella was called by one of her household, 
" the handsomest lady whom I ever beheld." Her 
portraits show a symmetry of feature which has been 
supposed to indicate that harmony of qualities which 
distinguished her. 

But Henry IV. although he had consented to ac- 
knowledge his sister as his successor, objected to her 
marriage with Ferdinand of Arragon, and a large party 
openly opposed it. Spies were set upon her actions, 
and every measure taken to hinder the progress of 
her marriage negotiations. Her enemies even formed 
a scheme of seeking her person, and many of her 
friends betrayed and deserted her, but Isabella with 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 301 

great courage sent envoys to her affianced, Ferd- 
inand, to tell him, in effect, that it was best they 
should be married at once. 

The old king, John of Arragon, was then in his 
worst extremity, sore pressed by insurgent Catalans ; 
but Ferdinand resolved to hasten to his bride. with- 
out delay. 

He received the message at Saragossa ; the dis- 
tance is not great to Valladolid, where he would find 
Isabella was, but the country was full of watchful 
enemies. Ferdinand, accompanied by half a dozen 
attendants, disguised as merchants, journeyed chiefly 
in the night. Ferdinand himself pretended to be a 
servant, took care of the mules when they halted 
upon the road, and waited upon the others at table. 
They made the journey all one day with no disaster 
except that they forgot the purse which contained 
all the money they had, and left it at the inn where 
they spent the night. Late on the second night, 
they arrived at a little place occupied by a body of 
Isabella's partisans. 

As they knocked at the gate, they were saluted 
by a large stone shoved off the battlements by a 
sentinel, which came dangerously near the head of 
the prince. 

"What are you about ? " he shouted, with a voice 
as vigorous as he could make it, cold and tired as he 
was, after travelling two days with but little rest at 
night. 

His voice was recognized, and he was received 
with great joy and festivity by those within. They 
escorted him, well-armed through the rest of his 



302 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

journey, and reaching Leon, the Castilian nobles of 
his party eagerly thronged to render him homage. 

On the 15th of October Ferdinand entered Valla- 
dolid, where he was received by the Archbishop of 
Toledo, and conducted to the apartments of Isabella. 

When he entered her presence, Gutierrez de 
Cardenas, the first who pointed him out to the 
princess said, " Ese es, ese cs" — that 's the one, that \s 
the one ! In reward for this, his family bears on 
their escutcheon the double SS, which sounds like 
his exclamation. 

Ferdinand was at that time seventeen. His com- 
plexion was fair, though somewhat bronzed with ex- 
posure to the sun, his eye quick and cheerful, his 
forehead ample, and approaching baldness. His 
frame was muscular and well proportioned, for he 
was one of the best horsemen of his court, and ex- 
celled in field-sports of every kind. His health was 
ensured by his extrejne temperance in diet, and by 
such habits of activity that it was said he seemed to 
find repose in being busy. 

Isabella was a year older than her suitor. In 
stature she was somewhat above the middle size. 
Her complexion was fair, her hair of a bright chest- 
nut color, inclining to red, and her mild blue eyes 
beamed with intelligence and sensibility. 

She was dignified, modest, and reserved. She 
spoke the Castilian language with unusual elegance, 
and her intellectual cultivation was superior to that 
of Ferdinand, whose early education had been ne- 
glected. 

The interview lasted more than two hours, and 




^ •: ' Br 



\ ' ^Si' ' i \ ) • I' 

• .-■■; ? > \* I 



304 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

was perfectly satisfactory to both parties. Among 
other things, the preliminaries of the marriage were 
adjusted. When the awkward question of expense 
came up, it turned out that both parties were so 
poor, they would have to borrow money for the 
wedding. On so small a basis did this young couple 
begin housekeeping. 

The marriage took place four days afterwards, on 
the 19th of October, 1469, in the presence of about 
two thousand persons. A papal bull of dispensation 
was forthcoming to justify the union of cousins, as 
the bride and bridegroom were within the forbidden 
degrees. This document was forged by the old king 
of Arragon, aided by Ferdinand and the archbishop, 
because they knew Isabella would never consent to 
be married without it. The people knew nothing of 
it at the time, but, some years later, the dispensation 
was easily obtained from Sixtus the Fourth. Isa- 
bella was seriously pffended when she heard about 
the deception. 

When the marriage was fairly accomplished, mes- 
sengers were sent to the king, Henry IV., to inform 
him of it. For the rest of his life he opposed the 
interests of his sister, but he was pining under an in- 
curable malady, and died in 1474. Isabella was then 
twenty-three years old. 

A numerous assembly of the nobles, clergy, and 
the public magistrates of the city of Segovia, where 
Isabella was at the time, then waited upon her, at 
the Alcazar, and, receiving her under a canopy of 
rich brocade, escorted her in solemn procession to 
the principal square of the city, where a broad scaf- 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 305 

folding had been erected for the ceremony of proc- 
lamation. Isabella, royally attired, rode on a Span- 
ish jennet, an officer preceding her on horseback, 
bearing aloft a naked sword, the symbol of sover- 
eignty. 

On arriving at the plaza, she alighted from her 
horse, and, ascending the platform, seated herself 
upon a throne which had been prepared for her. A 
herald, in a loud voice, proclaimed : " Castile ! Castile 
for the king, Don Ferdinand, and his consort, Dona 
Isabella, queen proprietor of these kingdoms ! " The 
royal standards were unfurled, bells pealed, and 
canons were fired from the castle. 

Ferdinand was in Arragon, at the time of Henry's 
death, and had no share in these ceremonies. On his 
return, there was a little disagreeable discussion 
about the crown of Castile, which Isabella's friends 
regarded as hers exclusively, while Ferdinand's rela- 
tives, and especially the Henriquez, who had all the 
pugnacious qualities of his mother, one of their 
family, claimed his right to a share of it, as the near- 
est male representative of the House of Trastamara. 
The question was not easy ; it had, of course, been 
expected, between the partisans of Isabella and the 
courtiers of Ferdinand. Could she, a woman, inherit 
the crown of Castile? It is the very question which 
has disturbed all Spain for the greater part of this 
nineteenth century. If she could not, her husband, 
Ferdinand, was the nearest male representative of 
the House of Henry the IV. The Cardinal of Spain 
and the Archbishop of Toledo determined that 
females could inherit the crown in Castile and Leon, 



306 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

though it was granted they could not in Arragon. 
Whatever authority Ferdinand might possess could 
be derived only through her. It is said that Ferdi- 
nand was so displeased with this arrangement, that 
he threatened to go back to Arragon ; but Isabella 
soothed him, and persuaded him the distinction was 
only nominal. The images of both were stamped on 
the public coin, and the united arms of Castile and 
Arragon were emblazoned on the same seal, and she 
promised that his will should always be hers. All 
municipal and ecclesiastical appointments in Castile 
were, from that time, made in the single name of the 
queen. She ordered the issues from the treasury, 
and received the homage of commanders in the 
army. The king and queen both signed proclama- 
tions, the images of both were stamped on the coin, 
and from that day to this day the arms of both have 
been quartered together on the escutcheon. 

Thanks to the good sense of Isabella, more than 
to any shown by her husband, the united kingdoms 
gradually gained in strength. But the young pair 
were not suffered to repose, for a war arose with Por- 
tugal about the succession, and they found it hard 
work, with their small purses, to maintain an army. 
Peace was effected in 1479, an d, in the same year, 
Ferdinand received his own crown by the death of his 
father. Arragon, with its extensive dependencies, de- 
scended to him. Thus, the crowns of Arragon and 
Castile, after a separation of more than four centu- 
ries, became united, and the foundations were laid of 
the magnificent empire, destined to overshadow, in 
its time, every other European monarchy. 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 307 

Isabella established her head-quarters in Seville, 
where she received the most loyal and magnificent 
reception. She held her court in the great hall of the 
Alcazar, still beautiful with the arabesque ornamen- 
tation of its Moorish architect, and devoted her time 
to the reformation of abuses licensed by her prede- 
cessors. Every Friday she took her seat in her 
chair of state, on an elevated platform covered with 
cloth of gold, and surrounded by her council. The 
queen herself examined the. suits ; and by extraor- 
dinary despatch, in the two months that she stayed 
in the city, a vast amount of plundered property was 
restored to its rightful owners, and so many offen- 
ders brought to prompt punishment, that it is said 
that no less than four thousand persons, with guilty 
consciences, fled from the place. 

Such energetic conduct on the part of the queen, 
and the able assistance of her royal spouse, brought 
tranquillity into the country, such as had long been 
absent. When prosperity was thus restored, Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, secure upon their thrones, with 
always increasing wealth and a good army, turned 
their eyes to that region of the Peninsula which was 
not theirs, although it should by natural position 
and ancient possession belong to the crown of Spain. 
It was then in 148 1 that the war began which ended 
in the fall of Granada in 1492. All this time there 
was constant fighting going on, and deeds of the 
greatest prowess were performed on the Christian 
side as well as by the Moors. 

Ferdinand was at the head of the Spanish troops, 
and fought with the greatest bravery on every occa- 



308 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

sion, while his coolness and excellent judgment per- 
vaded every detail. Isabella threw herself into-the 
contest with the greatest ardor, visiting the camp 
in person, encouraging the soldiers with gifts of 
clothes and money. She caused large tents, known 
as the " queen's hospitals," to be kept for the sick 
and wounded, and furnished them herself with medi- 
cines and attendants, thus herself originating the 
idea of camp-hospitals. 

Isabella may be regarded as the soul of the war. She 
engaged in it with the exalted purpose of restoring 
the empire of the Cross over the ancient domain of 
Christendom. She never suffered her powerful mind 
to be diverted from this great and glorious object. 

At the beginning of the long contest, the Spaniards 
were lower than most of the European nations in 
military science. Isabella took pains to avail herself 
of all foreign resources for their improvement. The 
soldiers were trainee^ to act in concert and to obey 
authority, to patient endurance, fortitude, and subor- 
dination. It was in this school that were formed 
those celebrated captains who, in the beginning of 
the sixteenth century, spread the military fame of 
their country all over Christendom and the newly 
discovered world. It was in the war with Granada 
that the great Captain Gonsalvo de Cordova earned 
his first laurels, and it is said that Fernando Cortes, 
as a boy, thought of going to join his banner, but, in- 
stead, it happened when he was nineteen that he 
sailed for the West, and afterwards became the con- 
queror of Mexico. 

While Ferdinand and Isabella were in their camp 




s- 

3°9 .XpOffKEN^y Portrait of Columns. 




3 TO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

before Granada, the capitulation was signed that 
opened the way to an extent of empire compared 
to which the conquest of country on their own 
peninsula was insignificant. 

Christopher Columbus, filled with faith in 'the ex- 
istence of a new world, left Lisbon in disgust, where 
he had been trying to interest the king of Portugal 
in his plans of discovery, and came to submit his 
proposals to the Spanish sovereigns. 

He arrived in the latter part of 1484, when the 
minds of the king and queen, and the heart of the 
whole nation were absorbed in the conquest of 
Granada, and it was long before he received the 
slightest notice. At last, however, he received an 
invitation to repair to Santa Fe, with money enough 
accompanying it to provide for his equipment and 
his expenses on the road. 

Columbus arrived at the camp in season to witness 
the surrender of Granada, when every heart was swell- 
ing with triumph £nd exultation. Such success dis- 
posed the sovereigns to listen with favor to proposi- 
tions leading to more glorious adventure. Columbus 
described to them the splendors of the Easterrfldng- 
doms, which he fully expected to reach by sailing 
towards the setting sun ; he held out to them the 
prospect of extending the empire of the Cross over 
these heathen lands, proposing to devote his own 
profits in the enterprise to the recovery of the Holy 
Sepulchre. 

Ferdinand, from the first, regarded the scheme with 
cold distrust. It was Isabella who, won to it at last, 
said, in answer to his opposition : 



FERNLNAND AND ISABELLA. 



311 



" I will assume the undertaking, for my own crown 
of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray 
the expenses of it." 

This was no idle offer, for the treasury had been 
reduced to its lowest ebb by the Moorish Avars. 
Funds were found, however, without the sacrifice 
of the royal gems. Arragon was not considered as 




DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS. 



mixing in the scheme, the expense and the glory of 
which rested with Castile. As everybody knows, on 
the 3d of August, 1492, Columbus bade farewell to 
the Old World on his wonderful voyage of discovery. 
The confidence of Isabella in Columbus was fully 
justified when, in the spring of 1493, letters were re- 
ceived from him announcing his return to Spain, 



312 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

after successfully achieving his great enterprise by 
the discovery of land beyond the Western Ocean. 

The delight and astonishment raised by this news 
were in proportion to the scepticism with which his 
project had been looked upon at first. 

The court was in Barcelona, when Columbus ar- 
rived — Admiral Columbus as he was now called. He 
at once hastened to present himself before the sov- 
ereigns ; people thronged to meet him as he passed 
through the country, accompanied by several dark 
natives of the islands he had discovered, arrayed in 
their simple costumes, and decorated with collars 
and bracelets rudely fashioned of gold. He had 
with him several kinds of strange quadrupeds, and 
birds of gaudy plumage, unknown in Spain. 

It was a proud moment for the discoverer, when 
the king and queen advanced from their throne, ex- 
tending their hands for him to salute, and causing 
him to be seated before them. After a while the sov- 
ereigns requested him to tell his story, and then 
heard from his own lips the wonderful narrative of 
his adventures. 

Immense wealth flowed into the coffers of the 
Spanish kings through the discovery of a new 
world ; and Isabella might look back from the 
summit of her power and splendor with a smile 
upon the time when she had to borrow money for 
her marriage. The royal house of Spain had come 
to be one of the great powers of Europe, and its sub- 
jects, living in prosperity and harmony, were well 
governed and happy. 

Ferdinand became involved in a long war in Italy, 




COLUMBUS ON THE DECK OF HIS SHIP WITH AN ASTROLABE IN HIS 

HAND. 



313 



3H THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

through his connection with the cause of Naples. 
He conducted his share in it with great sagacity and 
prudence, and aided by the genius of his chief com- 
mander, Gonsalvo de Cordova, the Great Captain, he 
accomplished brilliant results. 

Queen Isabella had one son and four daughters, 
for all of whom she was careful to make good mar- 
riages. All her daughters lived to reign, but with 
little happiness added to their brilliant positions. 

Prince John, the only son, and the heir to the 
kingdom, was married when he was not quite twenty 
years old, to the Princess Margaret, daughter of the 
Emperor Maximilian of Germany. The bride came 
by water from Flanders, escorted by a fleet of over 
one hundred vessels, large and small. She was met 
on her arrival on the coast, by the young Prince of 
the Asturias, for such was the title already given 
to the heir of the Spanish crown, and by his father, 
King Ferdinand. 

They were married with great splendor ; but in the 
midst of all the rejoicing, the young bridegroom was 
seized with a fever, of which he soon died, to the 
great grief of the country, by all the people of which 
he was greatly beloved. 

The Infanta Isabella, the oldest child of the sov- 
ereigns, had married, one after the other, two princes 
I of Portugal, for her first husband died soon after the 
wedding. 

Not long'after the death of Prince John, the young 
Isabella, Queen of Portugal, gave birth to a son, an 
event which would have occasioned great joy, for he 
would, as heir to Spain and Portugal at once, unite 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 3 I 5 

the two countries, which by their close connection 
ought naturally to be one. 

But the rejoicing was brief, for scarcely an hour 
after the birth of the little prince his mother died. 

The blow was heavy for Isabella, whose spirits 
had not had time to rally since the death of her 
only son. 

The child, who was named Prince Miguel, was 
early confirmed in his rights to the three monarchies 
of Castile, Arragon, and Portugal, an act which was 
the culmination of all the grandeur of the reign of 
Ferdinand and Isabella. But this little prince also i 
died — before he had completed his second year, — 
defeating the only chance which had ever occurred 
of bringing the three nations under one rule. 

At his death the succession of Castile and Arragon 
came to the Princess Joanna, who married Philip, ■ 
son of the Emperor Maximilian, at the same time 
that her brother married his sister. 

The Princess Joanna survived her mother and all 
her immediate family. She became mad and in- 
capable of government, and her father and husband 
settled between them, not always in the greatest 
harmony, the affairs of state. Her son Charles, as 
Charles V. of Germany, and Charles I. of Spain, in- 
herited her kingdom and also attained the title of 
Emperor of Germany. 

Catalina, the youngest daughter of the Castilian 
sovereigns, married Henry VIII. of England, known 
in English history as Catharine of Arragon. She was 
the second Spanish princess who married a prince of 
the royal house of England. The other was Con- 



3l6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

stance, the daughter of Pedro the Cruel, from whom 
Queen Isabella was lineally descended. 

So many domestic calamities, as well as the inces- 
sant fatigue and exposure of her life, had impaired 
the health of Queen Isabella. It was visibly de- 
clining in 1503, so that the Court of Castile begged 
her to make some provision for the government of 
her kingdom after her decease, for Joanna her daugh- 
ter had already shown symptoms of insanity. 

Ferdinand fell ill with a fever, and the queen was 
seized with the same disorder, increased by her 
anxiety for her husband, who, however, gradually 
threw off the attack, while she sank under it. 

In her suffering the queen did not lose her care for 
the welfare of her people or the concerns of her 
government. Though she had to lie upon her couch 
a great part of the day, she there listened to the 
reading of what was taking place at home or abroad. 

The deepest glopm overspread the nation. The 
superstitious Spaniards recalled ominous circum- 
stances, an earthquake and a hurricane, which they 
were sure announced the great calamity of her death. 
Isabella herself felt the decay of her bodily strength, 

Cand resolved to perform what duties remained to her 
while her faculties were still vigorous. 

She executed her will, which is a celebrated proof 
of the peculiar qualities of her mind and character. 
She appointed King Ferdinand, her husband, sole 
regent of Castile until the majority of her grandson 
Charles, being led to this, she says, " by the consid- 
eration of the magnanimity and illustrious qualities 
of the king, my lord, as well as his large experience 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 



317 



and the great profit which will redound to the state 
from his wise and beneficent rule." 

Three days after signing the last codicil to her will 
the queen died, surrounded by the friends of her 
childhood. As she saw them bathed in tears around 




HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS (ALHAMBRAK 

her bed, she said gently : " Do not weep for me, nor 
waste your tears in fruitless prayers for my recovery, / 
but pray rather for the salvation of my soul.'^e She 
was fifty-four years old, and had reigned thirty years. 
She died on the 26th of November, 1504. 



* 






n 



i "0 






i 



3l8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

One of the last requests of the queen was that 
she might be buried in Granada, the brightest pearl 
of her crown. Her body was transported there from 
a great distance, escorted by large numbers of cava- 
liers and priests. Scarcely had they set out when a 
tremendous tempest began, which continued during 
the whole journey ; roads were made nearly impas- 
sable, bridges swept away, and the level land buried 
under a deluge of water. Horses and mules were 
borne down by the torrents, and their riders once or 
twice perished with them. The melancholy escort 
reached its destination on the 18th of December, 
and the remains of Isabella were laid in the Francis- 
can monastery of the Alhambra. Here, in the heart 
of the capital, which her determination had redeemed 
from the heretic, they reposed until after the death 
of Ferdinand, when they were removed to be laid 
by his side in the cathedral at Granada, built upon 
the ruins of the mc^sque which they destroyed after 
the conquest. 

Charles V. called upon the best artists in the world 
to make designs for the royal sepulchres of his 
family. They lie in state in the chapel built for the 
purpose. Ferdinand and Isabella, Joanna, their 
daughter, and Philip her husband. Over the altar 
is a bas-relief representing the surrender of Granada, 
Isabella on a white palfrey between King Ferdinand 
and the great Cardinal Mendoza, who is riding on 
a mule, as is the fashion for dignitaries of the church 
in Spain. Boabdil presents the keys, behind are 
ladies, knights, and soldiers, and in the distance cap- 
tives are seen coming out of the gates. 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 



319 



At each end of the altar, the Catholic sovereigns 
kneel in effigy, their faces, costumes, and forms ex- 
actly represented ; behind the king is the banner of 
Castile. 




TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 

In the centre cf the chapel are two alabaster 
sepulchres, superby wrought by Italian artists, and 
decorated with delicate carving. Upon one are 
stretched the effigies of Ferdinand and Isabella ; on 
the other, Philip and his wife, Joanna. Isabella lies, 



320 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



sleeping in marble, placid and beautiful, and, by her 
side, as she would have wished, lies Ferdinand, 
in marble as well. Here, also, is the royal standard, 
which flaunted on the hill when the Moorish flag 
went down before it. Here is what Isabella would 
have liked to call her talisman — the very mass-book 
which Francisco Florez made for her, that she might 
read her prayers. Here is a chasuble wrought by 
her own hand, and not far away is the portrait of 
Hernan Perez, who, in the heat of the siege, rode 
into Granada, and fixed an Ave Maria on the very 
wall of the Mosque, and retired safely. The mauso- 
leum is one of the most interesting memorials in 
Spain. 




SiQS)l 



CHAPTER XXI. 



CHARLES I. OF SPAIN, — CHARLES V. OF GERMANY. 



WITH the extraordinary reign of Charles, the 
grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, begins a more 
intimate relation of Spain with the politics of Eu- 
rope. Strange to say, and sad to say, in the same 
reign begins the visible decline of Spain from the 
prosperity and the strength which she had won and 
deserved, under the prudent and wise administration 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, and Cardinal Ximenes. 
It has been said that Charles had more power for 
good or ill in Europe than has been exercised by any 
man since the reign of Augustus ; and that, on the 
whole, he probably did as much harm with it as 
could possibly be done. This is probably true, 
though it is hard to say how much harm a selfish 
bigot can do ; and any one who has studied the his- 
tory of Philip the Second, Charles' successor, will 
feel that Charles himself did not exhaust the re- 
sources of bigotry and selfishness. 

There is preserved, in the Royal Library at Mad- 
rid, an exquisite missal-book, such as was made and 
adorned in those times for the personal use of princes. 
Nothing can be finer than are its paintings and other 

321 



322 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

decorations. By a curious felicity of compliment, a 
series of royal contemporary portraits is introduced 
among the pictures of the illuminations, so that 
David, Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba are repre- 
sented with the lineaments of the sovereigns who 
reigned in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth 
century. But the highest value of this matchless book 
is not in its decorations or its art, though its covers 
blaze with gems and its pages display these beauti- 
ful paintings. An inscription in the beginning says 
that the gold used for the decoration, within and 
without, is absolutely the same gold which was 
brought by Columbus from the islands on his first 
voyage as the first fruits of his new discovery. 
Those very grains of gold were consecrated by Isa- 
bella, after the birth of her grandson, for the illumi- 
nation of the most costly book which the art of her 
time could make — a book which was to be his book 
for use in worship, and with which, doubtless, she 
lavished her prayers that his administration of the 
wealth of the Indies might be worthy of the hopes 
with which all men welcomed the great discovery. 
But such hopes of hers were never fulfilled. 

No ! Spain and Charles were tried by prosperity, 
and they were not equal to the test. Indeed, that 
extension of empire which took Charles away 
from Spain for much of his life, and gave to him 
important duties elsewhere, may be said to have 
weaned him from the country in which he was 
born, and of which he was the absolute ruler. 
The excuse, rendered again and again, for some act 
of atrocious maladministration in Spain, is that 




Progenies 
hi 

AET 



QYJNTVS < SIC < CARGLVS 

EVMINA" ET'ORA-TT 
SVAE XXXI 

M D - XXXI 



XLLEJ 
T.. S 



, 



323 



CHARLES THE FIFTH IN HIS 3IST YEAR. 



324 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Charles was absent when the thing was done. The 
land was governed, or it was not governed. It obeyed 
an absolute despot ; and that despot was so en- 
gaged sometimes, as to think of it only as the treas- 
ury from which he should draw his revenue. The 
careful system of administration introduced by 
Ferdinand and Isabella would be, on the one side, 
stereotyped in hard forms, and on the other reck- 
lessly abandoned. From the end of the reign of 
Charles to the beginning of constitutional govern- 
ment in our own time, it may be said that Spain has 
been the worst-governed country in the world. Of 
such failures the beginnings are to be sought in 
Charles' absence from Spain, in his duties as Em- 
peror of Germany, and arbiter of the destinies of 
Europe. Indeed, while Charles still reigned, the 
endless wars which he maintained in Europe, Africa, 
Asia, and America, drained from Spain the treasure 
which the newly discovered land poured in, and 
steadily exhausted the resources of the nation. 

Ferdinand and Isabella had been unhappy and un- 
fortunate in the death of their only son, Don John, 
and their eldest daughter, the queen of Portugal, 
neither of whom, as the reader knows, left any issue. 
Their only remaining child was Joanna, the princess 
whose after-career was so unfortunate, and who has 
given so many sad subjects to painters and poets. 
The daughter of the lords of the newly-discovered 
Indies would not lack for suitors whatever her per- 
sonal attractions or deficiencies. Ferdinand and 
Isabella chose for the husband of Joanna, not un- 
naturally, the young Archduke of Austria, " Philip 



CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 325 

the Handsome," who was the son of the Emperor 
Maximilian, and of Mary of Burgundy, the only , 
child of Charles the Bold. When, therefore, the 
baby was born, who was to be Charles the First of 
Spain, and Charles the Fifth of Germany, he was 
the grandson and heir apparent, on his mother's 
side, of the king and queen of Spain, and, on his 
father's side, of the princess to whom all Burgundy 
had descended, and also of the Emperor Maximilian. 
Although the title of the emperor was not trans- 
mitted by descent, still the claims of family were natu- 
rally considered in elections, and, in point of fact, 
when this baby prince had grown to be twenty years 
old he was elected emperor. We read of prospects 
like these surrounding a cradle, almost as we read 
the stories of the promises in a fairy tale. After the 
event we trace the misfortunes of Spain back to the 
very contingencies which, at the moment, seemed 
to promise so much for the glory of the child then 
born. 

It will be a convenient aid to memory for the 
reader to recollect that Charles, who was to have so 
much to do with the drift of the sixteenth century, 
was born in the "even year" 1500, the year before / 
that century began. His father, the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, resided at Brussels, which was his court and 
though he paid formal homage for these provinces to 
the French king, he reigned virtually as the sover- 
eign. The reader must remember that Burgundy 
took in the districts which are more generally known 
now as Belgium, Burgundy, Dauphiny, part of Pro- 
vence, and parts of what has made Languedoc, 



326 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Savoy, and Holland. His father died when he was 
but six years old, and he then inherited the crown 
of the Low Countries. He became king of Spain 
in 1 5 16, and when his grandfather died, in 15 19, 
Grand Duke of Austria. 

The young prince Charles was born at Ghent, and 
brought up at his father's court in Brussels. Spain's 
first misfortune was that her sovereign for near forty 
years was not to be a Spainard. The boy showed 
an early interest in military exercises and the sports 
of the open air. While he was reputed to be some- 
what dull of study, it was his pride to excel in the 
exercises of arms. The most interesting anecdote 
told of his life, is that in his first appearance at a 
public tournament, before a great assembly curious 
to see the young prince, and not prepossessed in his 
favor, he rode into the lists with a banner which bore 
the inscription, " non demiun " " not yet." Even then, 
however, he had assumed the government of Flan- 
ders. When he was only fifteen years old, Chievres, 
his tutor, trained him to read public papers, to be 
present at his councils, and to propose himself the 
matters on which he needed its opinion. His grand- 
father, Ferdinand, died when he was sixteen years 
old. A voyage or a journey from Spain to Brussels 
was then a matter of many weeks, and by his will, 
Ferdinand left the Cardinal Ximenes regent until 
Charles could arrive in person in Spain. 

This provision was the more necessary, because 
the old king had at times flattered his younger 
grandson, whose name also was Ferdinand, with the 
hope that the crown of Spain might be left to him. 



CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. $2? 

But Ximenes boldly proclaimed Charles king of Cas- 
tile in his absence, and, notwithstanding secret dis- 
contents, his title was recognized. From this time 
till Charles arrived, the administration of Spain was 
substantially in the hands of Ximenes. But the 
young king's Flemish ministers interfered, as far as 
they could, with his administration, and by their ad- 
vice Charles sent associate councillors to his Spanish 
court, as if to assist the great cardinal. The Span- 
iard treated them with distinction, but maintained 
his own authority. He even carried on a war in 
Navarre from which he drove out John d' Albrecht. 
He dismantled all the fortresses except Pampeluna, 
and to this precaution Spain owes the possession of 
her part of Navarre to-day. He was constantly urg- 
ing the new king to come to his kingdom, and, after 
a year, he succeeded. The voyage was dangerous, 
but Charles landed safely on the 13th of September, 
1 5 17, and was received with great magnificence and 
enthusiasm. But his first act was an insult to Xim- 
enes. He took care not to meet his great minister. 
His abrupt message to that effect proved fatal, and, 
after a regency of twenty months, distinguished for 
sagacity, prudence, and boldness, Ximenes died. 
Thus did Charles begin on a false policy towards 
Spain, suggested by his Flemish courtiers, which 
alienated from him the nobility and the people of 
his kingdom. The Spainards thought, and thought 
justly, that the Flemings only cared for Spain so far 
as it supplied them with money. Peter Martyr de- 
clares that in ten months only they sent 1,100,000 
ducats into Flanders, 



328 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

So soon as Charles left them, therefore, each of 
the principal provinces rose in rebellion, not always 
against Charles' dignity, but against the govern- 
ment of the viceroys, whom he had left behind. In 
Castile, Padilla, a popular leader of great ability suc- 
ceeded, at the head of an armed force, in obtaining 
possession of Joanna, the emperor's mother. She 
had been shut up as insane, as doubtless she was. 
But a sudden return of intelligence enabled this un- 
fortunate lady to assure the people that she had 
been ignorant of their sufferings. She nominally 
held an equal share in the sovereignty with Charles, 
and in his absence, her co-operation with the insur- 
gents was, of course, of the greatest importance. 

Had the malcontents in the different provinces 
maintained any system of intelligent co-operation 
with each other, things would have gone hardly with 
the emperor's viceroys. But, in truth, the leaders of 
the several insurrections knew little and cared little 
in any case for what was going on in other provinces 
than their own. The viceroys, on the other hand, 
had at least the consciousness of imperial sympathy, 
they had the imperial finances to rely upon, and, to 
a considerable extent, they were sustained by the 
nobility in their respective provinces. For these 
reasons, they were able to act more promptly and 
with more decision than the insurgents, who were 
recruited, generally speaking, from the oppressed 
and discontented populace. To these causes, more 
than to any distant orders given by himself, Charles 
owed it that when he returned to Spain in 1522 he 
found the insurrections all suppressed. The people 



CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 329 

of the several provinces were dreading the punish- 
ment which might be meted out by an indignant 
master. The viceroy, in Castile, had punished 
twenty persons capitally. So cruel were those 
times, that this was considered, even by Dr. Robert- 
son a hundred years ago, to be a very small number, 
in a province of which the population cannot have 
been two millions. It was supposed that on the 
emperor's arrival, his vengeance would sweep much 
more widely. But Charles showed his statesman- 
ship, and we ought to say his generosity, by refusing 
to shed any more blood. He published a general 
order giving amnesty to all persons concerned in the 
insurrections, — an amnesty from which only eighty 
persons were exempted, and these, as it would ap- 
pear, for a limited time. 

At the time when Charles landed in Spain, with 
such cares before him, Adrian, who had been in his 
youth his preceptor, and afterward regent of Spain 
in his absence, was chosen Pope of Rome. The 
people of Rome were amazed by the austerity and 
humility of an old man, who showed none of the mag- 
nificence and splendor which, as they supposed, be- 
longed to the head of the Church. The Pasquinades 
of the time, which took the privileges of Punch to- 
day, represented him as a schoolmaster with a bunch 
of rods, flogging the cardinals. Adrian did not for- 
get to whom he owed his elevation. Still he tried 
to unite the warring princes of Christendom, — and 
proposed for them, as a common object, what might 
be called a crusade against Solyman the Magnificent 
who had conquered Rhodes. But here he did not sue- 



33° THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

ceed. ' Venice broke with Francis I. king of France, 
and joined Charles against him. The Pope, naturally 
enough, fell into the same alliance with his old pu- 
pil and master. At this time, the faithless Constable, 
Charles Duke of Bourbon, rebelled against Francis. 
Charles V. offered to this prince his sister in mar- 
riage, — the title of king of a kingdom to be made 
for him from Provence and Dauphiny. Henry VIII. 
of England was the third party in the treaty. The 
king of Spain was to invade France from the Pyre- 
nees, — Henry on the side of Picardy, — and 12,000 
German allies to attack the very heart of the king- 
dom with the forces of the treacherous Bourbon. 
This plot was detected by Francis before it could 
be executed. He prepared himself against it as well 
as he could, and then made his fatal push into 
Italy, — hoping that the success which in another 
generation Napoleon won, might relieve him from his 
complications. Alas for him ! — when he might 
have had Bayard for his general he appointed a 
court favorite named Bonnivet, for no better reason 
than that he was the most accomplished gentleman 
at court, and an implacable enemy of the Constable, 
Duke of Bourbon. 

Fortunately for his own reputation Pope Adrian 
died at this moment. So overjoyed were the people 
of Rome at this event, that they hung garlands on 
the door of his physician the night after it took 
place, with the inscription : " To the Deliverer of 
his Country." With his successor, Clement, Charles 
was not so closely bound. 

The history of Charles' reign from this time to his 



CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 33 1 

abdication is the history of the rest of Europe, rather 
than of Spain. At the end of his life, he said, as if 
with a certain self-approval, that he had visited Spain 
at six different times. So far did he refuse to regard 
it as his permanent home, or more indeed than a 
point to stand upon when he prepared for this or 
that enterprise for moving the world. But it was to 
the bravery of Spanish soldiers and the skill of 
Spanish officers that Charles owed his successes, and 
never have the noblest qualities of the Spanish 
nation stood out in a more distinguished way before 
the world than in Charles' reign. 

It is difficult to believe in our time, that 
the suppression, for the moment, of the wretched 
business of Moorish piracy in the Mediter- 
ranean should have been one of the successes 
which reflected most personal credit upon Charles. 
But so long had the risk of piracy been accep- 
ted as a matter of course, and so arrogant were 
the Moors in maintaining it, that when Charles 
opened the business of punishing Barbarossa, the 
ruler of Tunis, he appeared in some sort as the 
champion of Christendom. When he succeeded, by 
the capture of Tunis, in dethroning Barbarossa, and 
establishing his rival on the throne, he liberated no 
less than twenty thousand Christian slaves, who had 
been captured in different piracies by the Moors. 
These men returned to their homes, eagerly sound- 
ing Charles' praises. Many of them — most of them 
probably — belonged to nations over which he did not 
rule. And thus, in a certain magnificence of his, in 
which he 'was apt to assert the position of ruler of 



33 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Europe, he had done for these unfortunates what 
their own sovereigns had failed to do. Charles de- 
served much credit. He had himself taken the 
charge of the expedition, and its motions by sea and 
by land were under his immediate direction. Another 
expedition, in which he attempted a similar success 
in Algiers, was an utter failure. He scarcely landed 
his men when his fleet, which was under Doria's 
command, was broken to pieces by a tempest, and 
Charles was glad to withdraw without even attack- 
ing his enemy. Of this unsuccessful foray the most 
interesting memory to-day is that Fernando Cortes, 
who knew how to lead men so well, was serving here 
as a volunteer in disgrace, after he had been recalled 
from Mexico. He had a horse wounded under him. 
He begged permission to stay, and offered to storm 
the city, but his proposal was ridiculed. Of Charles' 
military movements in other parts of Europe, by 
which he fairly earned the credit of a brave soldier 
and a far-seeing officer, we need not speak in a history 
of Spain. 

Curiously enough it is the siege of Pampeluna in 
the year 1521, an event which to military historians 
is of no sort of importance, and which we have not 
even alluded to in our sketch of his reign, which has 
proved in the history of the world to have results more 
important than can be traced to any of the larger 
battles in which Charles had a share. Five years 
after Charles came to the crown, Francis, king of 
France, wishing at least to insult him, commissioned 
a young nobleman, named Henri d'Albrecht, to in- 
vade Spain. Henri's general took the Spanish fron- 



CHARLES L— CHARLES V. 



333 



tier by surprise, and succeeded in taking the fortress 
of Pampeluna. The Castilians were at this time 
convulsed by those internal dissensions, which have 
been described. But so soon as news came to them 
of a French invasion, they turned the French out 
faster than they came in. The incident has not, 
therefore, the slightest military importance. But it 




BATTLE UT PAVIA. 



was in that siege of Pampeluna that Inigo Lopez de 
Recalde de Loyola, a Spanish gentleman of rank, 
was wounded and taken prisoner by the French. He 
had been a page of King Ferdinand's, and had served 
gallantly in his wars. With equal gallantry he was 
defending Spain, in defending Pampeluna, when he 
received the wound which has been so important in 
history. To while away his slow recovery, he read 



334 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

a book of Lives of the Saints, and in the contem- 
plations to which it led him, he determined on what 
men called a " religious life." As soon as his health 
was restored he made a pilgrimage to the monastery 
of Montserrat, near Barcelona, and here remained 
nearly a year, concealing his. name and rank. The 
next year he went to Jerusalem, travelling much of 
the way on foot. He had already formed the idea 
of an order of friends who should labor for the good 
of religion. Strange to say, Spain did not favor his 
earliest enterprises, and it was in the University of 
Paris that he found those companions, whose names 
have since been distinguished as the first members 
of the " Society of Jesus," founded by him. The 
new order was finally established in the year 1 540. 
Loyola took for his " religious name " the name of 
Ignatius, and it was by that name that he was canon- 
ized a hundred years after he was wounded, and by 
this name he is generally known. He was born nine 
years before the Emperor Charles. He died two 
years before Charles, in the year 1556. This great 
leader, therefore, who has exercised an empire so 
wide over the minds and souls and society of men, 
now for more than two centuries, is almost exactly 
the contemporary of that king of Spain, who was 
born to empire, who thought his star never failed 
him, whose soldiers conquered, and whose banners 
flew in triumph in every quarter of the globe. The 
name and the work of Loyola are remembered to- 
day by hundreds of thousands who have never heard 
of the great sovereign in whose army he once 
served. 



CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 33$ 

Even before Loyola died, Charles had ceased 
to reign. He seems to have seen the folly of his 
own life. It has been well said of him that he was 
too cunning to rule a world. Disgusted with his 
own intrigues, perhaps conscious of his own failures, 
he assembled a splendid company in Brussels on the 
25th of October, 1555, and surrendered all his terri- 
tories and authority in the Netherlands to his son, 
and abdicated his title to all his thrones. He retired 
to the monastery of Yuste and dragged along three 
more years of life there. They were spent in political 
complaints and gluttonous indulgence. The expo- 
sure made within this century of the pettiness of the 
interests of this prince, who was born to the empire 
of the world, has made men forget even what there 
was of courage and conduct in a life, which did so 
much to hold back civilization. 

By the unfortunate result of the insurrections 
which had accompanied the beginning of Charles' 
reign, the people of Spain had lost the proud privi- 
leges which they had maintained ever since the 
times, when kings needed every day the arms and 
the lives of their subjects. Charles still maintained 
the Cortes in form, in one province or another. But 
it existed in form only, and in each case became 
little more than a Court of Registry, where the de- 
crees of the emperor could be proclaimed and con- 
firmed. The nobility may have supposed, at the 
outset, that they were to triumph by this subjugation 
of the commons. But in truth, as the people lost 
their power, the aristocracy, though somewhat more 
slowly, lost theirs. And, as Dr. Robertson implies, 



33^ THE STORY OF SPA TV. 

they found too late, when they had no power in 
council and were only a force to be used at arbitrary 
pleasure by their prince, that it was but a poor com- 
pensation for their old authority, that they might 
stand covered when they were in the presence of 
the king. 

Meanwhile, through this reign, the soldiers of 
Spain, in those strange wars in which the customs 
of chivalry gave way before the arts of modern 
Europe, shed their blood and gave away their lives 
in every continent of the world. The reader has 
seen something of Charles' wars in Africa and in 
Europe. On Asiatic islands and in American dis- 
coveries his soldiers went in both directions round 
the world ; they joined hands at the antipodes with 
their companions from whom they parted when they 
left Spain. For Charles' conquests at home he 
drew upon the treasury, matchless till now even in 
the Eastern romances, which his officers in America 
sent to him. And whatever may be thought or said 
of his failures at home, in his great charge of Europe, 
which was given so largely into his hands, it must 
be owned that he and his viceroys showed, on the 
whole, courage, skill, and address, in the enterprise, 
new to the world, which led to the immense Spanish 
empire in America and in Asia. 

At the time when he became king of Spain, Cabot, 
Columbus, and Vespucius had discovered the con- 
tinent of America. Not long after his accession to 
the crown, Fernando Cortes, with a handful of men, 
marched from the Gulf of Mexico upon the city of 
the same name, and, after terrible struggles, de- 



CHARLES I.— CHARLES J\ 337 

throned its sovereign, and reigned in his stead, as 
Charles' viceroy. He discovered the Pacific and 
California. Before Charles' death, Spanish officers 
pushed northward, and as early as the year 1540, 
Spanish establishments were made in what is now the 
State of New Mexico. Southward Charles' lieuten- 
ants established a regular line of communication 
from ocean to ocean across the Isthmus of Panama, 
not far from the very line at which M. de Lesseps 
hopes to cut the isthmus to-day. This line of com- 
munication was needed, indeed, for no less a purpose 
than to carry across the ingots of Peruvian silver to 
the Atlantic side on their way to Charles' treasury, 
and from the Atlantic to carry the stores for the 
arsenals and garrisons which Spain was establishing on 
the Pacific. Indeed, Spain regarded the Pacific Ocean 
as her own closed sea. And if, when Drake appeared 
there in 1574, he chose to think that he was at war 
with Spain because he was in the Pacific, he had this 
excuse, that Spain, at peace with England though she 
were, would have seized and imprisoned him, perhaps 
would have killed him, merely because she found 
him a trespasser on her waters. Meanwhile the is- 
lands of the West Indies calmly and peacefully be- 
came provinces of Spain, under her control as com- 
pletely as were Valencia and Andalusia. Before the 
death of Charles V., Spain had taken possession of 
Florida, and her flag floated over New Mexico, Mex- 
ico, Guatemala, Peru, Chili, Paraguay, and Buenos 
Ayres, upon the continent, as over every large 
island of the Caribbean Sea. On the maps, indeed, 
Spain claimed wider dominion yet in America. 



33 8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

A Portuguese ship, on its way to the East Indies, had 
stumbled on the projecting Cape of Brazil. Before 
this, the Pope Alexander VI. had, in 1493, adjusted 
the claims of Portugal and of Spain to the extra- 
European world, by giving to Spain all which was 
west of an ideal meridian, and Portugal all which 
was east. No man then knew how wide the Pacific 
was. A generation after, even the eighteen men did 
not know who had crossed it, under Magellan at first, 
and afterwards under Sebastian Cano. 

Well down in the sixteenth century, navigators of 
the American shores supposed that they were still 
feeling their way along the shores of Asia. In- 
deed it is quite probable that the first appearance of 
the coast of the United States on the map is due 
not to the' observation of any adventurer who had 
really seen it, but to the certainty which Marco 
Polo had given two centuries before, that the coast 
of Asia trended in t that direction. For the earliest 
coast maps of America had no Cape Cod, no Long 
Island, and no Chesapeake Bay. And in the fictions 
of those who pretend to be the discoverers, the na- 
tives pick lilies and roses in New Jersey, in the open 
air in May, and dry grapes for raisins in Block Island 
a month after. With the supposition that the Pa- 
cific was so narrow, the Philippines were brought 
twenty or thirty degrees nearer to America than they 
are. Really they belonged within the Portuguese 
half of the undiscovered world. But Magellan put 
them into the Spanish part, and there they have re- 
mained to this day. It was not till Anson's voyage 
of 1743 that this great error was exposed to Europe. 



CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 339 

Government so extensive — more than imperial, — 
or any definition of empire which the world had 
known until nowy-was administered by Charles, — 
while he was in the field perhaps, perhaps in fight, 
perhaps in his Mediterranean adventures, perhaps 
engaged in those perplexing diplomacies in which 
theology bore so large a part, and where, as it has 
proved, Charles bore himself so unwisely. No won- 
der, then, if in the details of the administration 
much went wrong. In that eventful half century 
between the reign of Ferdinand and the end of that 
of Philip, Spain had won, through most of the world, 
the reputation of the blackest cruelty. Her iron 
hand was on the inferior races. Arbitrary power did 
what it always does, and debased the men who used 
it. The people of our own race — such men, for in- 
stance, as Drake and Cavendish, and afterward 
such men as Essex and Hawkins and Raleigh and 
Sydney — regarded " Spaniard " as only another word 
for " child of hell," and the living Spaniard himself 
as the visible ally of the Devil. In their fierce war- 
fare with him, — in such fighting as is described in 
Tennyson's ballad of " The Revenge," a deep reli- 
gious horror of the author of lies and of his children 
gives dignity and strength to an Englishman's loyalty 
to his nation, his sovereign, and his Saviour. But, 
after granting this cruelty, yet making allowance for 
it, in memory of its sources, none the less is it true, 
that in discovery, in adventure, in colonization, in all 
that part of her work which fell outside of Europe, 
Spain showed the noblest courage, patience, and 
foresight. She illustrated some of the grandest 



340 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

qualities of man. It is |iot by cruelty and treachery 
that the people of a poor peninsula, just emerging 
from a long war of races, obtain possession of half 
the world. It is rather by such faith as led Colum- 
bus, by such manhood as gave Magalhaens his su- 
premacy over discontented rivals. It is by that 
proud hospitality, in which Spain welcomed such 
leaders, and gave places of command to these two 
men, and to Cabot and Vespucius, who were only 
not their peers. It was by such prompt decision or 
heroic audacity as once and again saved Cortes,— it 
was by the wisdom of Ximenes, by the humanity of 
Las Casas, by the chivalric courage of thousands of 
unnamed soldiers, and the Christian constancy of thou- 
sands of unnamed confessors, that Spanish names 
were placed on half the headlands of the world. 
Everywhere the modern world, tracing back its recent 
history, looks with mysterious curiosity to that land 
which sent ojjt such, men as Columbus, and Balboa, 
and Cortes, and Magalhaens, in the age of Charles 
V., of Leo, of Michel Angelo, of Leonardo, of Loyola, 
and of Luther. 



PART V. 




CHAPTER XXII. 



THREE PHILIPS. 



After the abdication of Charles V., Spain was 
ruled for a century by his direct successors, Philip 
II., III., and IV. This period is marked as the de- 
cline of the splendid fortunes of the country. 




No doubt Philip II. at one time had more power 
in his hand than had ever been held by a purely 
Spanish king. He was king of all the Spanish king- 

343 



344 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

doms and of both the Sicilies. He was titular king 
of England, France, and Jerusalem. He was Abso- 
lute Dominator in Asia, Africa, and America. He 
was Duke of Milan and both the Burgundies, and 
Hereditary Sovereign of the Seventeen Netherlands. 
These were his inheritance, and to them he himself 
added the crown of Portugal. 

Cervantes, who lived in the time of Philip II., in 
his " Numantia," from which we have already quoted, 
makes the river Douro, coming upon the scene, 
" attired as a river," with several boys representing 
tributary streams, recite the prophetic tale of Spain's 
successes, culminating with the glories of his own 
sovereign. 

O Spain, my mother dear, thy piercing cries 
Have struck upon mine ears for many an hour, 

And if I did not haste me to arise, 

It was that succor lay beyond my power. 

That fatal day, that day of miseries, 

Which seals Numantia's doom, begins to lower ; 

The stars have willed it so, and well I fear 

No means remain to change a fate so dear. 

Minuesa, Tera, Orvion as well, 

Whose floods increase the volume of mine own, 
Have caused my bosom so to rise and swell, 

That all its ancient banks are overflown. 
But my swift current will not break their spell 

As if I were a brook, their pride has grown 
To do what thou, O Spain, didst never dream, 
To plant their dams and towers athwart my stream. 

But since the course of stern, relentless fate 

Brings round the final fall, without avail, 
Of this, thy well-beloved Numantian State, 

And closes up its sad and wondrous tale, 



THREE PHILIPS. 345 

One comfort still its sorrows may abate, 

That never shall oblivion's sombre veil 
Obscure the bright sun of its splendid deeds, 
Admired by all, while age to age succeeds. 

But though this day the cruel Romans wave 
Their banners o'er thy wide and fertile land, 

Here beat thee down, there treat thee as a slave, 
Wilh pride ambitious, and a haughty hand, 

The time will come (if I the knowledge grave 
Which Heaven to Proteus taught to understand) 

When these said Romans shall receive their fall 

From those whom presently they hold in thrall. 

I see them come, the peoples from afar, 

Who on thy gentle breast will seek to dwell, 

When to thy heart's content, they have made war 
Against the Romans, and have curbed them well. 

Goths shall they be ; who, bright with glory's star, 
Leaving their fame through all the world to swell, 

Will in thy bosom seek repose from strife, 

And give their sturdy powers a higher life. 

In coming years will Attila, that man 

Of wrath, avenge thy wrongs with bloody hands ; 

Will place the hordes of Rome beneath the ban, 
And make them subject to his stern commands : 



And when the rightful Lord of heaven and earth 
Is recognized as such on every hand, 

He, who shall then be 'stablished and set forth 
As God's vicegerent over every land, 

Will on thy kings bestow a style of worth 
As fitting to thy zeal as it is grand ; 

They all shall be of Catholic the name, 

In true succession to the Goths of fame. 

But he, whose hand of vigor best shall bind 
In one thine honor, and thy realms content, 



346 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

And make the Spanish name, too long confined, 

Hold place supreme, by general assent, 
A king shall be, whose sound and thoughtful mind 

On grand affairs is well and wisely bent ; 
His name through all the world he rules shall run, 
The second Philip, second yet to none. 

Beneath his fortunate imperial hand 

Three kingdoms once divided under stress, 
Again beneath one single crown shall stand, 

For common welfare, and thy happiness. 
The Lusitanian banner, famed and grand, 

Which once was severed from the flowing dress 
Of fair Castile, will now be knit anew, 
And in its ancient place have honor due. 

What fear and envy, O beloved Spain, 

Shall bear to thee the nations strange and brave ; 

Whose blood shall serve thy flashing sword to stain, 
O'er whom thy banners shall triumphal wave. 

Cervantes himself took a part in the conquest that 
"knit anew" the Lusitanian banner to the stately 
robes of Castile. He had not cause for personal 
gratitude to Philip II., who allowed him to live in 
obscurity, without recognizng his services. Don 
Quixote was not published till 1603, after the death of 
this Philip, and it is his successor of whom the anec- 
dote is told that, looking out of the palace window 
one day, he saw a man reading a book in the street, 
who had to keep stopping to strike his forehead, 
overcome with laughter. 

"That student," remarked Philip III., "is either 
out of his mind, or he is reading Don Quixote." 

And, indeed, it proved that this was the book in 
his hand. 

The events of Philip the Second's reign relate in 



THREE PHILIPS. 347 

great measure to his possessions outside of Spain, 
and are therefore not strictly matters belonging to 
this history. Philip was of a gloomy, stern character, 
bigoted in his zeal for his own religion. He not only 
allowed, but may be said to have enjoyed, the auto- 
da-fe, which was the burning of heretics who refused 
to abandon their religious creed. On his return to 
Spain, immediately after his father's abdication, at 
an auto-da-fe, in Valladolid, at which he was present, 
one of those condemned, who was an officer of dis- 
tinction, asked the king how he could have the heart 
to behold the exquisite torments of his people. 
" Were my own son," replied the king, " such a 
wretch as thou, he should bear the same fate." 

Philip was four times married, first to his cousin 
the Infanta, Mary of Portugal. He was then but 
sixteen years old, and she was nearly the same age, 
only five months younger. The princess came from 
Lisbon to Castile for the ceremony, and a splendid 
embassy was sent to meet her on the border. She 
was received at Salamanca, at the palace of the Duke 
of Alva, with all honors, by the duchess and a bril- 
liant company of cavaliers and ladies. 

But the young prince had already seen his destined 
bride, for he was so impatient that he sallied out 
with a few attendants, disguised like himself as hunts- 
man, for five or six miles from the city, in order to 
see the Infanta unknown to herself. Philip wore a 
slouched velvet hat, and hid his face under a gauze 
mask, so that he could mingle in the crowd, and thus 
he accompanied the procession through the day, and 
after dark, when the blaze of ten thousand torches 
shed a light stronger than daylight. 



348 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

It is pleasant to think of him as an impetuous 
youth, before he had become stern and moody. His 
young wife lived but two years, and her only child, 
Don Carlos, grew up to be a strange young man, a 
cause of trouble and anxiety, who died before his 
father. 

We know how Philip looked as a young man from 
the wonderful portraits of Titian, who was painting 
at that time. At twenty-one, the king had a fair and 
even delicate complexion. His hair and beard were 
of a light yellow. His eyes were blue, with the eye- 
brows somewhat too close together. His nose was 
thin and aquiline. The bad feature in his face, con- 
spicuous also in the portraits of all his family, was 
the heavy lower jaw. He was somewhat below the 
middle height, with a slight, graceful figure, and 
well-made limbs. His dress was rich and elegant, 
and his manners were a type of the old Castilian 
ceremonious dignity. His tastes were reserved and 
quiet, and he cared nothing for the chivalrous dis- 
plays and athletic exercises of the time. 

Philip's second marriage was with Mary Queen of 
England, commonly called " Bloody Mary." The 
match, on his side, was a matter of expediency, and 
on hers as well ; yet it is said, that after the negotia- 
tions had begun, the queen became greatly enamoured 
of the prince, through a portrait of him, painted but 
two years before by Titian, sent her by Philip's aunt, 
regent of the Netherlands, which Mary was to return 
as soon as she had possession of the original. 

The marriage was not a very happy one, for 
Philip spent but little time in England. He was 



THREE PHILIPS. 349 

drawn into resuming his father's quarrel with France, 
and invaded it with the help of Mary's army. The 
result to the English was the loss of their last posses- 
sions in France, including Calais, which the queen 
bitterly regretted. 

She died before the end of the war, having said 
that "Calais" would be found stamped upon her 
heart. Little comfort did the English receive from 
their Spanish ally, for four months after her death 
Philip had made peace with France, and confirmed 
it with a new marriage with the daughter of the 
French king, Henry II. 

This occasion, also, was a brilliant one with a sad 
ending. Henry II., tired of fighting, arranged a 
double marriage to take place at the same time ; 
that of his sister, Marguerite, with Philibert Emanuel, 
and his daughter, Elizabeth, or Isabella, with the 
king of Spain. Another Spanish marriage had been 
talked of for this princess, with Carlos, the son of 
Philip, for the bridegroom, a match more suitable in 
the age of the parties, for Philip was now thirty and 
the bride only sixteen ; Philip had already been twice 
married, and had lost the romantic spirit which led 
him disguised into the train of his first queen. But 
these considerations do not count in royal marriages. 

The weddings were celebrated with the greatest 
splendor at the French court. Tournaments were 
then the fashion, and Henry II. displayed much skill 
at this sport, of which he was very fond. After 
several brilliant passages at arms, and when it was 
time to leave off, the king urged one more course. 
His opponent was his own captain of the guards, the 



350 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Count of Montgomery. Their two lances struck and 
flew into splinters, one of which entered the king's 
eye. He fell mortally wounded from his horse, and 
died eleven days afterwards. The wedding rejoicing 
was turned into mourning, and Philip of Spain silently 
withdrew from France with his young bride. 

Much romance has been built upon the possible 
love between this French princess, and Carlos, the 
Spanish prince for whom she was at first intended. 
But he at this time was but fourteen ; and there is 
no foundation for the tales of persecution and ill- 
treatment • of his son by Philip. Carlos was of a 
moody, unhappy disposition, and died early. Jus- 
tice must acquit his father of any thing more than 
extreme severity towards him. 

The long struggle of Philip II. with his revolted 
subjects in the Netherlands, scarcely belongs here. 
The revolt of the Moriscos occupies for us a more 
important place. 

The Moors who cnose to become Christians, had 
been allowed to remain in the country ; they were 
called Moriscos. Philip II. decreed that they should 
frequent the Christian Church, that they should give 
up the use of Arabic in writing, that both men and 
woman should wear the Spanish costume, that they 
should discontinue their ablutions, and no longer 
receive Mohammedan names. 

In fact, however, the greater part of these Moors 
conformed only externally to the practices of the 
Christian religion. They went to mass only to es- 
cape the penalty of omitting it ■ they presented their 
children for baptism, but washed them afterwards 



THREE PHILIPS. 



351 



with warm water, to show their contempt of the 
sacrament. They went to church to be married, but 
coming home after the service, with closed doors 
they celebrated the wedding with their own songs, 
dances, and ceremonies. 

Communication was kept up with Turks and the 
Moors in Africa, always with the hope of deliver- 
ance. The Algerians, while they pillaged the sea- 




BULL AND MATADOR, MADRID. 

board towns, and carried off to slavery those Chris- 
tians who fell into their hands, left untouched the 
villages and persons of the Moriscos. The restric- 
tions of Philip exasperated them. Their enjoy- 
ments, their pleasures were taken from them ; above 
all they resented the interdict of their use of the 
bath, which was a part of their religion, as well as a 
source of enjoyment. 

The Moriscos took up arms in the mountains of 



352 THE STORY OE SPAIN. 

the Alpuj arras, and were resisted by the flower of 
the Spanish army, led by Don John of Austria, 
brother of the king. Much blood was shed on both 
sides, before the insurrection was put down. 

Philip was married for a fourth time, to Anne, the 
daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II. He died 
in 1598, in the palace of the Escorial, of which he 
was the founder. Philip III. succeeded him, his son 
by the last wife. It has been said that his father, 
fearing lest his heir should assert himself too much, 
had carefully trained him to be imbecile. If this was 
the case, he was only too successful. His son and 
heir allowed himself to be guided by worthless favor- 
ites, and exercised no force in the government of 
the kingdom. Its greatness ends with Philip II. 

In the reign of Philip III. the Mohammedans were 
expelled from Valencia, Andalusia, and Granada. 
We have seen how, at this time, the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, this people, for eight hun- 
dred years the sovereigns of Spain, had successively 
lost their independence, their religion, and their 
manners and customs. 

They had brought into Spain the cultivation of 
the sugar-cane, of cotton, and rice, and the mulberry, 
on which feeds the silkworm. Commerce owed 
them no less. The blades of Toledo, the silks of 
Granada, the leather of Cordova, the spices and 
sweets of Valencia, were renowned throughout 
Europe. At this period, the Moriscos had ac- 
customed themselves to forget the past, and to 
seek no other successes than those of industry. 
They had made up their minds to pay the enor- 



THREE PHILIPS. 353 

mous taxes demanded of them, for the sake of 
mere peace and protection for their families and 
their industries. 

It was decided by the councillors of the king 
that these good qualities were overbalanced by 
their heresy, and the dangers to be feared from 
insurrection. The king observed that he would 
rather be without subjects than rule over infidels; 
the foolish saying was applauded by his courtiers ; 
and orders, dated September, 1609, were despatched 
to the captains-general to force the Moriscos on 
board the galleys prepared for them, and land 
them on the African coast. 

Romance has found in the enforced departure 
of these poor exiles ample ground for tale and 
poem. Especially, stories of treasures hidden by 
them, which they could not carry with them, are 
still generally believed throughout Spain. 

It is said that even in the time of Ferdinand 
and Isabella the Moors of Granada were persuaded 
that sooner or later they should return to the 
fair land which they had rightfully conquered, and 
which was, as they believed, unjustly wrested 
from them. So, many of them, before their de- 
parture, buried in secret places their most precious 
possessions. 

Much of this treasure was discovered later by 
Spanish peasants, but other hidden places may 
have even yet escaped their greedy search. Le- 
gend says that the riches of one family of the Aben- 
cerrages, that brilliant race whose very name is 
regarded now as fabulous, were, and may per- 



354 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

haps still be, concealed in a cave reached by a 
subterranean passage, leading to a vast hall lighted 
by several lamps of silver. The ceiling of this 
excavated room was supported by eight columns 
of black marble, sparkling with gold and precious 
stones, like the scene of one of the Arabian Nights. 
Marble basins, placed between the columns, were 
heaped with gold pieces, stamped with the effigies 
of the first caliphs of Cordova or the kings of 
Granada ; in coffers of cedar were masses of arms 
and ornaments incrusted with precious stones. 
Other vases held lumps of gold and silver, as they 
came from the mine. In cups of" rock crystal, 
diamonds and topazes flashed with light, emeralds 
and rubies glowed. 

Such retreats the Moriscos left behind them 
when they sailed for the shores of Africa. Those 
who had disembarked there were treated with in- 
humanity and underwent every suffering. Some, 
assuming the disguise of Christians, spread over 
Catalonia and Southern France, but as a nation 
they vanished. 

In 1612, the double marriage was made, which was 
to strengthen the bonds of peace between France 
and Spain. The Prince of the Asturias, soon to be- 
come Philip IV., married Isabella of Bourbon, daugh- 
ter of the late Henry IV. of France, and the young 
king of France, not twelve years old, Louis XIII., 
married Anna, the eldest daughter of the Spanish 
king, and then called Anne of Austria. This was 
the work of Marie de Medicis, after the death of her 
husband, and contrary to the advice of his wise 



THREE PHILIPS. 355 

counsellor, Sully, who had always disapproved of 
the scheme. 

Philip III. died in 1621. He was the king who 
owed his death to the rigid etiquette of the Spanish 
court, because, being uncomfortably warm as he sat 
too near the fire, it took so long to send a messenger 
to tell a messenger to inform a gentleman in waiting 
to instruct a chamberlain to take the necessary steps 
to remove his majesty to a cooler distance, that he 
fell ill and expired. 

Philip IV. was only seventeen when he began to 
reign on the death of his father. Like him, he sur- 
rendered the reins of government to worthless favor- 
ites. The first was the Count of Olivares, who had 
been his gentleman of the bedchamber. 

Under such administration, Spain was steadily de- 
clining. The mass of the people were sinking into 
poverty, yet the court exhibited the greatest splen- 
dor ; plays, pantomimes, and costly entertainments 
succeeded each other in the capital. Charles, Prince 
of Wales, afterwards Charles I. of England, visited 
the court of Spain, accompanied by the Duke of 
Buckingham, in disguise, though every one knew 
who he was, — with a view of obtaining the hand 
of Philip's sister, the Infanta Maria. He was re- 
ceived with the greatest splendor, but the project 
fell through, and Charles married later a French 
princess. 

An insurrection of the Catalans gave the king and 
his minister something serious to think of. The reb- 
els implored the aid of the French king, and Louis 
XIII. was proclaimed Count of Barcelona, and ad- 



356 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

vanced himself to the frontier to direct his army. 
Philip intended to conduct the war in person, but 
his minister, Olivares, had not courage enough to 
meet the enemy ; he was, instead, aiding, in the very 
heart of France, a conspiracy to assassinate the 
French minister, Cardinal Richelieu, and even to 
dethrone the French king. It was to this plot 
that the young Cinq-Mars, a favorite of the king 
of France, lent himself, and to which he was sacri- 
ficed, at the age of twenty-two. 

The war lingered for years, with no decided suc- 
cess to either party ; until the Catalans themselves 
grew tired of the French yoke. They were in the 
end pardoned, and their privileges, of which they 
had been always tenacious, recognized as inviolable. 

The treaty which settled this and other things, 
was the celebrated treaty of the Pyrenees, by which 
was arranged the marriage of the Infanta, Maria 
Theresa, the daughter of Philip, with the youthful 
Louis XIV. On this occasion, to allay the opposi- 
tion of Europe to the union of two powerful king- 
doms, Louis solemnly renounced all claim to the 
Spanish crown, either for himself or for his suces- 
sors ; which renunciation, however, did not prevent, 
in the lifetime of Louis, the accession of his grand- 
son, Philip V., to the Spanish throne. 

From studying such a decline from the brilliant 
fortunes of the fifteenth century in Spain, it is pleas- 
ant to turn to the successes of the painter Velasquez, 
who was busy during the life of Philip IV. in paint- 
ing those masterpieces which now make the picture 
gallery at Madrid so interesting. His portraits of 



THREE PHILIPS. 357 

Philip and of the Duke of Olivares, as well as of 
other personages of the time, make us know how 
they looked, and give a reality to their lives, as 
books and dates fail to do. 

Philip IV. died in 1665. He was married a second 
time, after the death of the French princess, to Ma- 
ria Anna, the daughter of the emperor, Ferdinand 
III. She was his niece, for Ferdinand had married 
the sister of Philip. He left three children, Charles, 
Prince of the Asturias, who became, at the death of 
his father, Charles II. For Charles, the fifth em- 
peror of the name, who was in his time king of 
Spain, was Charles I. of Spain, as there had been 
no other Charles on that throne before him. Philip's 
daughters were Maria Theresa, married to Louis 
XIV., and Margaret, Queen of Hungary. 

With these descendants of Charles V. the line of real 
Spanish sovereigns may be said to end, for the next 
Philip was a pure Bourbon. With all their faults the 
Philips of this chapter displayed the virtues belong- 
ing to the Spanish character — devotion to their reli- 
gion, due regard to the state of sovereigns, and grave 
dignity befitting royal birth. In them we have the 
type of the Spanish hidalgo, — hijo de algo, or " son 
of somebody." 




CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE BOURBONS. 



Charles the Second of Spain is the last of that 
House of Hapsburg of which we saw the first Spanish 
king, born at Ghent, in the convenient year 1500. 
In the equally convenient year 1700, Charles II. 
died. School-boys and school-girls will have little 
else to thank him for. But they may be grateful 
for that care by which he provided for flagging 
memories, that the Hapsburg rule of Spain should 
be measured exactly by two centuries. 

The " Biographical Dictionary " dismisses him 
curtly with this sharp and brief biography : " He 
was the son of Philip IV. He was born in 1661, was 
proclaimed king in 1665, joined the coalition formed 
against Louis XIV., and in 1678 surrendered to this 
king Franche Comte and other provinces in the Low 
Countries. His last act was the leaving his crown 
to Philip, Duke of Anjou, the grandson of the same 
king." 

The region thus surrendered to Louis XIV. by 
this weak descendant of the Emperor Charles, is the 
same region which, as Alsace and Lorraine, has been, 
in our own time, ceded by conquered France to the 
new-born German empire, of which the constitution 

353 



THE BOURBONS. 



359 



was completed in Versailles, when a German army 
and a German emperor were encamped there. Such 
are the compensations of history. 

, Readers of our race will find it convenient to re- 
member that the Spanish King Charles II. and the 
English King Charles II. were nearly contemporary. 
Charles II. of Spain was born in the year 1660, the 
same year in which England called her Charles II. 




aW^fafC 



MALAGA. 

to the throne. It is in the reigns of these two kings 
that England and Spain, always in contest with each 
other, if there were a European war, met in conflict 
in America. St. Augustine had been established by 
the Spaniards as early as the year 1565. It is there- 
fore the oldest European establishment on the At- 
lantic seaboard of the United States. But in 1647 
there were but three hundred families in St. Augus- 



360 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

tine. Living with them were fifty Franciscan friars. 
This was almost the whole Spanish population of 
Florida. In 1663 Charles II. of England gave a 
charter for the settlement of Carolina, which bears* 
his name. The limits of the patent ran so near St. 
Augustine, that Catholic and heretic felt the natural 
jealousy of each other, and in 1665 Captain John 
Davis, a buccaneer, landed at St. Augustine and 
destroyed the little town. But, in 1667, the two 
Charleses agreed by treaty to suppress buccaneering, 
and, indeed, from that time its decline as an institu- 
tion may be said to begin. No English settlement 
was made in Carolina until 1670, and it was even- 
tually agreed that the St. Mary's River should be 
the line of separation between the English and 
Spanish colonies. This river, therefore, to this day, 
divides Georgia and Florida, which in their English 
and Spanish names still bear the token of their 
origin. 

In 1670 and 1686 the Spaniards attacked the 

\ English and burnt some of their houses. In 1687 
negroes were first introduced as slaves into Florida. 

1 In 1696, still in the reign of Charles II. of Spain, the 
Spanish government established a fort at Pensacola, 
on the western side of the peninsula. They were 
induced to take this step by the establishment of 
the little French colony at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. For Spain, worsted in Europe, was unwilling, 
without some struggle, to surrender the control of 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

Meanwhile, in Europe, Charles II. of Spain was 
engaged in the wretched series of falsehoods and in- 



THE BOURBONS. 36 1 

trigues, which led to what is known as the war of 
the Spanish Succession. Indeed, he is now remem- 
bered chiefly from his connection with these in- 
trigues. The oldest sister of Charles, Maria Theresa, 
had married Louis XIV. of France. Charles himself 
had no children and no living brothers. His sister 
was his heir, and after her death her descendants 
were the heirs to the Spanish throne. But Louis 
and the Infanta had both solemnly renounced all 
claim to the succession at the time of their espousals. 
This renunciation had been confirmed by the Cortes. 
A younger sister of Charles had been the wife of 
Leopold, Emperor of Germany. She also had re- 
nounced her claims to the Spanish crown. But the 
Cortes had not sanctioned that renunciation. She 
had a daughter who married the Elector of Bavaria, 
and the Electoral Prince of Bavaria inherited her 
claim to the throne. A third claimant was Charles' 
first cousin, the Emperor Leopold. He was a son of 
a daughter of Philip III. No renunciation had been 
exacted from his mother when she was married. "The 
question," says Lord Macaulay, " was certainly very 
complicated. That claim which, according to the 
ordinary rules of inheritance, was the strongest, had 
been barred by a contract executed in the most 
binding form. The claim of the Electoral Prince of 
Bavaria was weaker. But so also was the contract 
which bound him not to prosecute his claim. The 
only party against whom no instrument of renuncia- 
tion could be produced was the party who, in respect 
of blood, had the weakest claim of all." 

The experience of Charles V. was enough to warn 



362 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Europe against the danger of giving the crown of 
Spain to any other monarch The emperor, out of 
deference to the opinion of Europe, waived his claim 
in favor of the Archduke Charles. The dauphin 
waived his claim in favor of Philip, Duke of Anjou. 
But, without consulting the king of Spain or the 
emperor, William of England, Louis of France, and 
the States of Holland made a treaty which stipulated 
that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the second of 
the claimants named above, should succeed to Spain, 
the Indies, and the Netherlands. Even the king of 
Spain agreed to this and made a will leaving the 
crown to the Bavarian prince. Hardly had this been 
done when the prince himself died and the question 
was again unsettled. 

The same parties then agreed that Spain, the 
Indies, and the Netherlands should descend to the 
Archduke Charles. But to this treaty the Spaniards 
gave no consent. t A quarrel ensued between the 
Spanish court and the English court. The king of 
France was utterly faithless to his share in the trans- 
action and used his commanding influence to secure 
the crown for his own grandson Philip, the Duke of 
Anjou. As the reader sees, this was wholly in face 
of his own renunciation of the throne for any 
descendants of his, and the other renunciation made 
by his wife at the same time. 

Whatever was the right or wrong between the two 
claimants to the throne, it is clear that the people of 
Madrid and, indeed, the people of Spain favored the 
French claimant. Charles died on the 3d of No- 
vember, 1700. The Duke of Abrantes announced 




CLOISTERS, TOLEDO. 
363 



364 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

that the king was dead, and proclaimed Philip his 
successor. The great news was sent to Paris as 
quickly as was possible. The new king hastened to 
Spain. "The Pyrenees," said his grandfather, Louis 
XIV., " have ceased to exist." Louis, indeed, knew 
that he should have to fight before the Pyrenees 
were made into a valley, but he was not unwilling to 
do so. Within a year he insulted the English in the 
keenest way by recognizing the son of James II. as 
king of England. King William of England still 
lived and was quite willing to measure swords again 
against Louis. War was proclaimed on the 15th of 
May, 1702. William had died meanwhile, but not 
before he had formed the great alliance of the 
European princes against the Bourbons, and the 
proclamation was made simultaneously at Vienna, at 
London, and at The Hague. 

The young Philip was utterly incompetent for 
such a position. He was but nineteen years old, and 
his education had not at all fitted him for command. 
" He sat eating and drinking all night, lay in bed all 
day, yawned at the council table, and suffered the 
most important papers to lie unopened for weeks." 
Louis XIV., indeed, had so educated all the members 
of his family that they were unable, as they were 
unaccustomed, to act for themselves. Philip of 
Anjou, scarcely more than a boy, indeed, was little 
more than a puppet in the complications which fol- 
lowed. All he wanted was to have a wife, and Maria 
Louisa of Savoy, a beautiful girl of thirteen, was 
selected. From that time she ruled her husband, 
the Princess Orsini ruled her, and Louis, who had 



THE BOURBONS. 365 

selected the Princess Orsini for this duty, found to 
his surprise that he could not rule her. 

William III. of England died before hostilities 
began. But the English Government despatched the 
Duke of Ormond with a fleet, which seized the Span- 
ish galleons at Vigo, where it had put in to escape 
him. Ormond took seven millions of dollars of 
treasure. Fourteen millions, or goods to that value, 
were sunk in six galleons that were lost. This was 
the beginning of a series of assaults which the Eng- 
lish, Dutch, and Portuguese made upon Spain from 
one or another of its frontiers during the next six 
years. It is in this war that Lord Peterborough won 
those remarkable victories of which the story is 
almost like the stories of romance. It recalls mem- 
ories of the Cid and of the conquest of the Moors. 
Poor Philip and his wife were driven hither and 
thither with no will of their own. Charles, the Aus- 
trian claimant, who was with Peterborough, seemed 
at one moment to be sure of success. But his inac- 
tion at one time and his quarrels with the great Eng- 
lish leader at another, put an end to all such hopes. 
The Duke of Vendome took command of the French 
king's forces and drove the adherents of Charles into 
Barcelona, which was the only place remaining to 
him after so many years of war. Of a sudden a 
change of parties in England brought about the 
Treaty of Utrecht, and with the Treaty of Utrecht 
the Bourbon dynasty w T as confirmed on the throne 
of Spain, with that hold which it has had, now with 
a strong grasp, and now with very feeble fingers, 
until this time. 



366 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Philip hated the cares of royalty, and in 1724 
abdicated in favor of his son. But this boy died in 
the same year, and his name is not generally men- 
tioned among the kings of Spain, for his father was 
obliged, however unwillingly, to resume the crown, 
which he held until his death in 1746. Ferdinand 
VI., his son, succeeded him, and died without chil- 
dren in 1759. His brother Charles, known as Charles 
III., succeeded him and reigned until 1788. His 
reign brought more good-fortune to Spain and less 
evil than that of any other prince of this wretched 
line of Bourbon. 

It was in this reign that the Jesuits received that 
sudden blow from which this order has never recov- 
ered, either in America or in Europe. u A little 
before the break of day the decree for the expulsion 
of the Jesuits went forth, with the Great Seal itself, 
from the council-chamber of Charles III." This was 
on the morning of, the 25th of June, 1767. The 
Jesuit writers and their enemies alike agree that the 
king was brought up to this point by proof which 
satisfied him that the Jesuits had circulated slanders 
regarding his birth. At that time Spain and Charles 
had the good-fortune that Aranda was his prime- 
minister. The decree against the Jesuits was the 
joint work of Aranda and Choiseul, who, fortunately 
for France, was the minister of Louis XV. Besides 
Aranda, Florida Bianca was one of the ministers of 
Charles III., who seems to have had either great 
good-fortune or good-sense in selecting his servants. 

For a part of the time when these great statesmen 
administered his government for him, Vergennes. 



: ~"" : "'" I^K; 




368 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

another great statesman, was the prime-minister of 
France. In the same period there come in the event- 
ful six years between 1776 and 1782, when the United 
States of America, an infant nation in its first strug- 
gles, needed the assistance of France and Spain 
against England. Spain moved very slowly in such 
things. Indeed it is one of the traditions of Spanish 
administration in these later times to move slowly. 
John Jay, who was the minister of the young repub- 
lic to Spain, was sadly annoyed that he could not 
persuade them to move faster and to do more. But, 
if it were only that American vessels cruising in the 
Eastern Atlantic, and every now and then picking 
up an English prize, could run into the Spanish 
ports, that advantage was a very great one. There 
was, on our own side of the ocean, another way in 
which Spain gave great help to the new-born nation. 
It happened that from the year 1762 to the year 
1803, the whole of the great region called " Louisi- 
ana," which included all the western half of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, beside that part to the east of it 
which is in the State of Louisiana to-day, was in the 
possession of Spain. To the great indignation of 
the French settlers there, their French king had 
abandoned them and ceded the whole magnificent 
province to Spain. 

With the news of the battle of Lexington, the 
American traders in New Orleans went to the Spanish 
viceroy and urged him to come to the relief of their 
country. The American, Oliver Pollock, is always to 
be remembered as a friend in need at a time when 
America needed such friends. He persuaded the 




THE PASS OF PANCORBO. 
3 6 9 



370 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

viceroy to let him have gunpowder from the stores 
of the king of Spain, which he might send up the 
Mississippi River to Pittsburg. Spain was nominally 
at peace with England, but the governor did not for- 
get that England had snatched Florida from his 
king, and found this a good time for revenge. In 
the terrible stress of the first years of the Revolu- 
tionary war, the supply of powder thus received 
from an unexpected quarter proved to be of the 
greatest value. In the treaties of 1783, France and 
Spain repaid themselves for the losses which they 
had sustained in 1763. Spain then had lost Florida, 
and she now gained it again. The present posses- 
sion of it by the United States dates back only to 
the year 1 821, when the United States received it 
from Spain, having purchased it by a treaty which 
was made two years before. 

Charles III., the best sovereign whom Spain has 
had till the present, generation since the death of 
Ferdinand, died in 1788, in the fifty-seventh year of 
his reign. He was succeeded by his son, Charles IV., 
then a man of forty-eight years old. The wife of 
Charles, a woman who assumed an unfortunate pre- 
eminence in affairs was the Princess Maria Louisa of 
Parma. Unfortunately for Spain, a handsome guards- 
man appeared at court just before the king was 
crowned, who became a favorite both of king and 
queen. His name was Manuel Godoy, but he was after- 
wards known as the Duke of Alcudia, and the Prince 
of Peace. Four years were enough to advance him 
through all the stages of rank, from that of a private 
in the Life Guard up to prime-minister of Spain, 



THE BOURBONS. 



371 



and Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He 
had obtained these dignities when he was twenty- 
five years old, in 1792. In 1795, when he had suc- 
ceeded in making peace with France, he was made a 
grandee of the first class, and received a great grant 
of land with a very large income. In 1796 he con- 
cluded the offensive and defensive treaty with the 
French Republic, and the next year married Maria 
Theresa of Bourbon. This man was the evil genius 
of Spain. He handled both king and queen as he 
chose, and to the miserable intrigues of a miserable 
court we must look for such explanation as we need 
of the fall of Spain into the hands of Napoleon. 





CHAPTER XXIV. 



NAPOLEON. 



FERDINAND, the son of Charles, in despair at 
some phase which'these intrigues had taken, opened 
a secret correspondence with the French emperor. 
Napoleon, false to him as he was to almost every 
one, betrayed the son to the father, and took the 
occasion of the family quarrel, to begin that series 
of negotiations and assumptions which ended in his 
holding father and son both in captivity in France, 
while he established his brother Joseph at Madrid as 
king of Spain. All |his was done so promptly and 
with such authority of force that the Spanish people 
had, at first, hardly any opportunity of resistance. 
Indeed, at that moment Spain was nominally in 
alliance with France, thanks to Godoy ; and a large 
contingent from the Spanish army was holding Na- 
poleon's fortresses in the north of Europe. Of this 
period of transition the critical event, so far as the 
fortunes of Spain were concerned, was the battle of 
Trafalgar. 

By the treaty made by Godoy the French had 
gained the use of the Spanish fleet. In the battle 
of Cape St. Vincent of 1797 the English Admiral, 
Jervis, defeated them and took four line-of-battle 

372 




LEANING TOWER, SARAGOSSA. 

373 



374 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

ships. Peace was restored to Europe in 1802 by 
the short-lived treaty of Amiens, but on the 12th of 
December, 1804, Napoleon compelled Spain to join 
him in an alliance against England, and the Span- 
ish court declared war. Napoleon was thus able 
to unite the fleets of France and Spain, and they 
took the sea under Villeneuve with some prospect of 
success. Nelson was the English admiral, quite as 
eager to find them as they were to find him. The 
French fleet had slipped the English blockade of 
Toulon on the 18th of January, 1805, and formed a 
junction with the Spanish fleet at Cadiz. Before 
Nelson was made sure of the junction, the combined 
French and Spanish fleets had sailed for the West 
Indies. Nelson followed. Again and again he missed 
them. On the 9th of June, he learned that they had 
taken under convoy a fleet of merchant vessels, and 
were on their way home. Nelson followed again. 
But this extraordinary pursuit, of one squadron by 
another, in which both parties crossed the Atlantic 
Ocean twice, ended in Nelson's failure. The French 
and Spaniards had passed through Sir Robert Calder's 
squadron, had proceeded to Ferrol, on the northwest 
of Spain, where a smaller squadron awaited them, 
and all returned to Cadiz in safety. Nelson landed 
for the first time, it is said, in two years, at Gibraltar, 
and then returned to England, almost inconsolable. 
It proved that he had passed his enemies on his 
way home from the West Indies, outsailing them. 

So soon as he learned where they were, he offered 
his services again to the English Government, and 
was permitted by them to choose his officers from 



NAPOLEON. 375 

the whole list of the English navy. He set sail in 
the Victory, his old flag-ship, which had been refitted, 
and with the largest fleet which could be got to- 
gether. He arrived off Cadiz again on the 29th of 
September, which was the very day when Ville- 
neuve, the French admiral, had received peremptory 
orders to put to sea. Nelson was so afraid that 
Villeneuve would know his force, that he kept his 
station fifty or sixty miles west of Cadiz. Ville- 
neuve, on his side, saw an American captain in 
Cadiz, who had left London but a few days before 
and had seen Nelson there. So that Villeneuve 
supposed he was not to meet his great antagonist. 
He sailed promptly, as ordered. On the 21st the 
French and Spanish fleets could be distinctly seen 
from the deck of the Victory. A little after daylight 
Nelson came on deck and made signal to attack the 
enemy in two lines. He led one, and Collingwood 
the other. They had twenty-seven ships of the line 
and four frigates. The French and Spanish fleet 
had six more ships of the line and three more frig- 
ates. They did not avoid the conflict, and were 
formed judiciously to meet his attack in a double line. 
In the battle which followed Nelson was killed. 
The Victory was engaged on both sides, working 
both her batteries. Twice he gave orders to cease 
firing on the Redoubtable, because her great guns 
were silent, and he supposed she had struck. A 
musket ball from the mizzen-top of that ship struck 
his left shoulder, and he fell upon his face on the 
spot covered with the blood of his secretary, who 
had been killed a little before. Nelson died three 



376 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

hours after, but not before Hardy, his captain, an- 
nounced to him a complete victory. His last words 
were : " I thank God I have done my duty." 

Meanwhile Napoleon had been raging while wait- 
ing for the fleet at Boulogne to cover his invasion 
into England. But Villeneuve did not arrive. 
Greatly to Napoleon's mortification and annoyance, 
he was obliged to break up his camp at Boulogne and 
move eastward upon Vienna. The great battle was 
fought at Austerlitz, and not at Hastings on the Eng- 
lish shore. When Napoleon heard of Trafalgar, he is 
said to have remarked : " I cannot be everywhere." 
On which remark of his, Sir Walter Scott grimly 
comments that it was quite as well for him that he 
was not under the guns of the Victory. The defeat- 
of the allied fleet put an end to all projects of Eng- 
lish invasion. Villeneuve was made a prisoner when 
his own ship surrendered, and remained a prisoner 
in England for several months. He knew the anger of 
his master so well that he dared not face it. After he 
was released and returned to France, he stabbed him- 
self. It was said that the dagger entered his heart at 
the place indicated on an anatomical drawing, which 
was on the table before him, which he had pierced 
with a pin in studying for his successful suicide. 

With the usurpation of the Spanish crown by 
Joseph, the pride and indignation of the Spanish 
people were aroused. It was one thing to march a 
French army to Madrid. It was quite another 
thing to keep a great and proud nation satisfied 
under a foreign rule. In each province the people 
rose in rebellion. There was even an insurrection 



NAPOLEON. 377 

in Madrid. At Baylen, Castafios, an old Spanish 
general, defeated Dupont, who was compelled to sur- 
render with seventeen thousand men. This event 
was, as Napoleon afterward said, " his Caudine 
Forks." In truth it was the first serious reverse his 
arms had met with. The English writers say, and 
probably with truth, that it was due to Dupont's 
utter carelessness and the lack of discipline among 
his troops, more than to any military skill of Cas- 
tafios. The battle, indeed, was a tangle of conflict- 
ing forces, arriving from one point and another, of 
which the result, probably fortunate in the end to 
Spain, was the surrender of an army corps. 

" Probably fortunate ! " One cannot speak too 
definitely. For the same English authors insist that 
the victory was in the end a great misfortune. They 
say that it gave a false confidence to the Spanish 
generals and to their guerilla bands, which, in the 
end, led them to their ruin. 

The success had a more favorable influence on the 
national cause of Spain, by confirming the resolution 
of the English Government to maintain a large force 
in the Peninsula. Portugal had been for many gen- 
erations the firm ally of England. England was 
now maintaining a strong force in Portugal, which 
was at last placed under the command of Sir Arthur 
Wellesley, who won for himself before long the title 
of Lord Wellington. Massena, one of Napoleon's 
marshals, with a force larger than Wellesley 's 
threatened Lisbon. But Wellesley's combinations 
were so good, and his men fought so well, that he 
compelled Massena to withdraw, and even followed 
him into Spanish territory. In two terrible attacks 



378 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

he took by storm Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, the 
fortified places which the French held on the Spanish 
frontier. In the battle of Salamanca he proved his 
superior generalship, and where the forces were fair- 
ly equal, he drove the French from the field. All 
this gave courage to the Spanish guerilla forces, and 
in some instances they achieved considerable suc- 
cesses. Whoever reads a modern Spanish history 
might imagine that the Spaniards themselves drove 
the invaders out of Spain, and that a few English 
soldiers were there looking on. Whoever reads an 
English history might suppose that " Lord Welling- 
ton," as he then was, marched serene from victory 
to victory, only now and then varying the course of 
conquest by a masterly retreat, to show the world 
how a retreat should be carried on, but with the final 
result of the evacuation of Spain. The last great 
battle was fought at Victoria, a place so named in 
honor of a victory won five centuries before, of 
which " Ingles mundi " (the English mound) is a 
memorial of the Englishmen who then beat the 
French there. In the battle under Wellington's 
orders the French were completely broken, and fled. 
The losses of the allied nations show fairly enough, 
to whom belongs the honor of the victory. Of the 
English 3,308 fell, of the Portuguese 1,049, anc ^ °f 
the Spaniards only 553. The English could not fol- 
low their victory as promptly as Wellington wished, 
because they were fairly demoralized by the extent of 
their plunder. King Joseph fled with only one Na- 
poleon in his pocket. His carriage and his " loot " 
from the galleries of Madrid fell into English hands. 
Now came the fall of Napoleon, 



PART VI. 




CHAPTER XXV. 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
AN ODE. 

WRITTEN, OCTOBER, 1819, BEFORE THE SPANIARDS HAD RECOVERED 

THEIR LIBERTY. 

Arise, arise, arise ! 
There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread ; 

Be your wounds like eyes 
To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. 
What other grief were it just to pay ? 
Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they : 
Who said they were slain on the battle day ? 

Awaken, awaken, awaken ! 
The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes ; 

Be the cold chains shaken 
To the dust where your kindred repose, repose ! 
Their bones in the grave will start and move, 
When they hear the voices of those they love, 
Most loud in the holy combat above. 



Wave, wave high the banner ! 
When freedom is riding to conquest by ; 

Though the slaves that fan her, 
Be famine and toil, giving sigh for sigh. 
And ye who attend her imperial car, 
Lift not your hands in the banded war, 
But in her defence whose children ye are. 

381 



382 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

Glory, glory, glory, 
To those who have greatly suffered and done ; 

Never name in story 
Was greater than that which ye shall have won. 
Conquerors have conquered their foes alone, 
Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown : 
Ride ye, more victorious, over your own. 

Bind, bind every brow 
With coronals of violets, ivy, and pine ; 

Hide the blood-stains now 
With hues which sweet nature has made divine ; 
Green strength, azure hope, and eternity ; 
But let not the pansy among them be ; 
Ye were injured, and that means memory. 

— Shelley. 

Ferdinand VII., who had been in theory king of 
Spain ever since the abdication of Charles in his favor 
in 1808, returned to his capital to assume his crown. 
He had been living meanwhile in an honorable cap- 
tivity in France. He now took up his residence in 
Spain in 18 14. 

Two years before, a constitution had been drawn 
for Spain in the king's absence. It was the work of 
the Cortes on which all the real government of Spain 
had depended in the absence of its kings. It re- 
modelled the whole administration, so that Spain, 
which had been the most absolute monarchy in 
Europe, would become, under this constitution, the 
monarchy most severely limited. But Ferdinand 
returned on the wave of absolutism, and he took ad- 
vantage of it, as sovereigns did, who had more sense 
than he. It was not long before he promulgated a 
decree, by which the Cortes were declared illegal, 
and all their acts rescinded, the constitution among 



384 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

the rest. The Inquisition had been abolished since 
the king's departure, but it was now restored, and 
the most arbitrary bigotry reigned triumphant. The 
constitution was publicly burnt. The king promised, 
indeed, to grant one with liberal principles, but did 
nothing to fulfil his promise in six years. The gov- 
ernment, which one would have said was as bad as it 
could be, passed from worse to worse. Numerous 
conspiracies were quenched in blood, and the re- 
bellion of all the American colonies made the condi- 
tion of things desperate. 

In the autumn of 1819, a considerable army had 
been brought together at Cadiz, for the subjugation 
of America. But officers and troops refused to em- 
bark. They joined the disaffected people of Cadiz, 
and proclaimed the constitution of 18 12. Soon after, 
Mina, a patriot who had been exiled, proclaimed it 
in Spanish Navarre, and a series of insurrections 
through the whole country, compelled the king to 
acknowledge the constitution in March of 1820. A 
short interval of liberal government ensued. But, in 
1822, other conspiracies broke out in the interests of 
absolute government, which were generally sustained 
by the Catholic clergy. Under the direction of the 
Holy Alliance, a French army of 100,000 men moved 
into Spain, took possession of the capital, and ap- 
pointed a regency. Ferdinand, with the Spanish 
army, maintained a separate government for some 
months, but in October, 1823, without resistance 
from them, the Duke d' Angouleme took possession 
of Spain and reinstated Ferdinand with absolute 
power. From this time forward for five years, a 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 385 

French army of occupation was in Spain. All credit 
was destroyed at home and abroad. The contests 
between the two parties were of the bitterest de- 
scription, and the government oppressed the liberals 
with the hardest hand. Ferdinand, himself, was more 
moderate than the most bitter of his supporters. 
They made a plot to compel him to abdicate in 
favor of his brother Charles. This is the beginning 
of the Carlist plots, always in the interest of ab- 
solutism, and of the most extreme bigotry, which 
have desolated Spain, with but little intermission 
from that time to this. 

Don Carlos, as this brother is always called, was 
presumptive heir to the throne. As long back, 
however, as 1789, Charles IV., his grandfather, had 
issued a " Pragmatic Sanction," establishing the suc- 
cession to the crown of Spain in females as well as 
males. On the 6th of April, 1830, King Ferdinand 
confirmed this decree. On this decree and his con- 
firmation depend the rights to the throne of the king 
who has so lately died, and, of course, of his infant 
daughter, and infant son, who since his death have 
been proclaimed queen and king of Spain. 

Ferdinand had no children by either of his first 
three wives. His fourth wife, Christina, was a Nea- 
politan princess, as was Carlotta, the wife of Don 
Francisco, a younger brother of the queen. The 
wife of Don Carlos was a Portuguese princess, and 
between the Neapolitan princesses and their Portu- 
guese sister-in-law there was a constant palace war. 
The Neapolitan ladies persuaded Calomarde to sug- 
gest the abrogation of the Salic law to the king, 



386 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

and the decree was executed without the knowledge 
of the other ministers. 

When, therefore, the princess Dona Isabella was 
born to the king, on the ioth of October, 1830, 
she was the heiress to the throne, if only Spain rec- 
ognized the authority which had made a change so 
radical in the succession. It was a coincidence 
curious and interesting, especially to those who 
were children in those days, that there were then 
three princesses awaiting the death of old men be- 
fore they should mount three of the oldest thrones 
in Europe — Victoria in England, who was then 
eleven years old ; Doiia Maria in Portugal ; and 
Dona Isabella in Spain. In Spain, the change in 
the Salic law was not made without a protest. 
Ferdinand's brother, Carlos, vehemently denied the 
right of the king or the Cortes to take from him the 
succession. Ferdinand himself was weak, and in a 
fit of illness on September 18, 1832, he instituted 
again the Salic law. But as soon as he began to 
recover, he revoked this decision. He then banished 
his brother, Don Carlos, to Portugal, and soon after- 
wards ordered him to reside in the Papal States. 
But before the younger brother could sail for Italy, 
Ferdinand died on the 29th of September, 1833. 
Isabella the Second was proclaimed queen when she 
was not two years old, her mother, Maria Christina, 
of the two Sicilies, being appointed regent. Don 
Carlos, the child's uncle, with such assistance as he 
could receive from Dom Miguel, the uncle of the 
queen of Portugal, whose position was not very 
different from that of Don Carlos, led an insurrection 



388 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

against her in the northeastern provinces. The 
most extreme of the Catholic party and the most 
conservative of the mountaineers sustained him. 
It can hardly be said that the fires of that insurrec- 
tion are extinct at the end of half a century. But 
the little queen, all unconscious as she was of wars 
and rumors of wars, had stout allies. For her cause 
was regarded almost by common consent as the 
cause of liberalism. So the new government of 
Louis Philippe in France and the reform adminis- 
tration in England, with Dom Pedro, the liberal 
regent in Portugal, who had to maintain another 
niece against another uncle, all made a quadruple 
alliance with the Queen Regent of Spain. A force 
so strong as theirs, in the field and in reserve, over- 
powered Don Carlos, and he was obliged to flee his 
country. But he returned once and again. And 
when he died, his son, who bore the same name, re- 
newed the attempt, always supported by the more 
rigid Catholics, by the mountaineers on the southern 
slopes of the Pyrenees, and always affecting to have 
the support of the priesthood of the Roman Church. 
To this hour, in any overthrow of parties or in any 
attempt at a revolution in Spain, there will be a 
rumor of " Carlist " influence among the insurgents. 
But the last military movement of the Carlists was 
crushed when Amadeo was king of Spain in 1876. 
It must be understood that these Carlist movements 
have been headed by three different princes named 
Carlos. The first of these was Don Carlos, the 
brother of Ferdinand VII. He died in 1855. The 
second was his son, the Count of Montemolin, who 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 389 

died in 1861. Before his death, he signed a re- 
nunciation of all his claims to the throne of Spain. 
The Carlist cause is now represented by his 
nephew, also named Don Carlos, who is the son 
of his brother Juan, and was born in 1849. ^ n 
1868 Don Juan renounced all his rights to his 
son, Alfonso Carlos Ferdinando Juan Pio, who 
was born on the 12th of September, 1849. His 
wife is Maria, the daughter of the late Dom Miguel 
of Portugal, whose life, as has been said, has run 
somewhat on parallel lines with that of the first 
Don Carlos. 

The little princess came to the throne with the 
title thus seriously challenged before she was two 
years old. Her mother, Christina of Naples, was 
appointed regent, and when one remembers the 
wretched failure of the daughter's life it is but 
fair to reflect that she was the child of such a 
mother. There were two children, the young 
queen, Isabella, and Maria Louisa, who has since 
been known as the Duchess Montpensier. By Ferdi- 
nand's will, Christina was made both guardian of 
the children and regent of the kingdom ; and regent 
she was in a fashion for seven years. For those 
seven years, Spain was desolated by civil war. As 
for the regent, all that people knew of her was her 
shameless passion for her chamberlain, Hernando 
Mufioz, an officer of the body-guard, whom she 
made her chamberlain. Mufioz was of insignificant 
rank, his father having kept a tobacco shop in Ta- 
roncon. She contracted with him a Morganatic mar- 
riage in December, 1833, but this was kept a secret, 



390 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

and by him she had ten children. A conspiracy of 
men determined to give Spain liberal institutions, 
compelled her in 1836 to give a new constitution to 
the kingdom and to concede some of the rights of 
constitutional government. But in 1840, the scan- 
dals of her administration had become so odious, 
that she was compelled to resign her office of 
regent. 

To the great good-fortune of Spain, Espartero, a 
military officer of great ability, was high in command 
when Ferdinand died, and pronounced unequivo- 
cally for Isabella. Among the wretched intrigues of 
the court, and the constant changes of ministers, Es- 
partero retained the favor of the army and of what 
may be called the Spanish people. Twice he saved 
the capital when it was imperilled by the Carlists. His 
campaign of 1839, drove the Don Carlos of the day 
from Spain, and he w T as honored by the title of 
Grandee of Spain and Duke of Victory. In 1841, 
after Christina had Been compelled to give up the 
regency, he was named regent until the princess 
should have reached the age of eighteen, and in this 
capacity, which was really that of a sovereign, he 
administered the affairs of poor Spain with dignity 
and ability. 

But the student of modern Spanish history must 
remember all along that Spain is the prey of unceas- 
ing partisan dissension. By a combination of parties, 
which had nothing in common but their hatred of Es- 
partero, he was dethroned, in 1843. He lived in Eng- 
land for four years, then returned to Spain, and lived 
there in private until 1854. The miserable despot- 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 39 1 

ism of which Christina had been the moving spirit, 
whether she were nominally in power or no, then 
roused an insurrection which drove her from the 
kingdom, and Espartero was again called to the 
head of the government. Isabella was by this 
time queen, and he served as her prime-minister. 
The queen had been declared by the Cortes to 
have attained her majority in 1843, when she was 
but thirteen years old, and in 1846 she married her 
cousin Don Francisco d' Assisi, the son of the Don 
Francis, Ferdinand's brother, whose wife's intrigues 
in 1833 have been spoken of. At the same time her 
sister married the Duke of Montpensier, Louis 
Philippe's fifth son. These marriages were to a 
considerable extent the fruit of Louis Philippe's 
personal and selfish policy, and they did much to 
make him unpopular among the powers of Europe, 
when the French people ejected him in 1848. But 
whatever might have been the dictates of public 
politics or of family intrigue, Queen Isabella's his- 
tory was apt to be a wretched story of personal 
passion, in which she followed the example of her 
mother. In all changes of party, in the pendulum 
swings of administrations from pure absolutism to 
constitutional freedom and back again, personal in- 
trigue and personal passion were always intervening. 
At last, in 1868, the nation would bear no more. A 
revolution broke out in September. The people of 
Madrid turned against her. Isabella fled to France, 
and a provisional government was appointed. In No- 
vember, 1870, the Cortes, finding the impossibility 
of agreeing upon any candidate from the family of 



392 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

their rulers at home, attempted as a measure of com- 
promise to introduce a wholly new dynasty. They 
offered the crown to Amadeo, the second son of 
King Humbert of Italy. They thus avoided all de- 
cision between the Carlist candidates and their 
cousins. They secured a king from an old house, 
and from a dynasty that was popular at that mo- 
ment among the Liberals of Europe. 

Amadeo Ferdinand Marie, Duke of Aosta, was 
born on the 30th of May, 1845. He was married on 
his twenty-second birthday, three years before he 
was called to the Spanish throne, to Marie, daughter 
of Charles Emmanuel, Prince of Pozzo della Cisterna. 
He brought to his new position a certain popularity; 
but the problem was too hard a one to be solved by 
his ingenuity, and early in 1873 he abdicated in his 
turn. 

His reign had been long enough to show wriat 
had been, indeed, well enough known before, that 
the people of the t\$o peninsulas do not like each 
other. This short reign is likely to be remembered 
in history, for a visit which Amicis, the brilliant 
Italian traveller, made in Spain at that time, and 
the entertaining book of travels which he wrote then 
and afterwards. 

When Amadeo returned, the Republican party, 
who were responsible for his fall, attempted to or- 
ganize Spain as a republic. The present French 
Republic was then just born, and the Spaniards had 
the sympathy of France. Castelar, a pure and in- 
telligent statesman, the friend of Garibaldi, Maz- 
zini, Kossuth, and other leading Republicans of 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 393 

Southern Europe, led this movement. Castelar 
showed dignity and resource, which received, as 
they deserved, the admiration of the intelligent 
world. 

But the problem was not to be solved by him, 
and at the end of 1874 a new combination brought 
back the legitimate Bourbon line. 

The younger Don Carlos, the Count of Montemo- 
lin, had led an insurrection-in the northern provinces 
from the moment of the abdication of Amadeo. 

The friends of constitutional government would 
not trust him and did not trust the republic. They 
now proclaimed Alfonso the son of Isabella, a young 
man seventeen years old. He was the prince 
whose recent death seems so unfortunate for Spain, 
and has called forth the general regret of Europe and 
America. 

Alfonso XII., Francis d' Assise Ferdinand Pius 
John Marie-de-la-Concepcion Gregory, etc., etc., was 
born November 28, 1857. His education in early 
life is said to have been entrusted, as was that of his 
sisters, to Madam Calderon de la Barca, a lady of 
English birth, long resident in America, who had 
married one of the more distinguished Spanish 
diplomatists. Her entertaining book on Mexico is 
well remembered. In later years the young prince 
had the great advantage, for a prince, of the school 
of exile. For in the fall of his mother, he also was 
banished from Madrid, and when, at seventeen years 
of age, he came back to that city, he had been away 
from it more than half his life. It was familiarly 
said in Spain, that when his partisans offered him 



394 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

the crown and he accepted it, he did so saying that 
he wished them to understand that he was the first 
Republican in Europe, and that when they were 
tired of him, he hoped they would tell him so, and 
that he would leave as Amadeo had done. 

Whether he said this or not, the speech was 
well invented by any one who wished to earn for 
him popularity among Spaniards. Their loyalty 
is certain ; but it is loyalty which, as the reader 
has seen, is accompanied with a decided self-respect. 
Alfonso's throne was all the more secure, that it 
was at least supposed that he had not intrigued 
for it. From that moment until he died, eleven 
years after, the Spanish people were generally dis- 
posed to think good things of their young prince. 
It was freely said, while he was on the throne, that 
while there were but sixteen million people in Spain 
there were sixteen million and one political par- 
ties. And there is but little exaggeration in the 
epigram. 

King Alfonso seemed to show courage and dis- 
cretion. He, at least, maintained the forms of 
constitutional government. As soon as a new min- 
istry came into power, all other factions have, al- 
most of course, united against it. Such terms as 
the " Democratic Monarchic " combination have 
been usual phrases in Spanish politics. The king 
changed his ministers when he was compelled to. 
But he has been fortunate in some of them. And 
Sagasta, who is at the moment when we write at the 
head of the government, has approved himself to the 
world looking on, and to at least a considerable part 
of Spain, as a prudent, brave, and wise man. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 395 

The young king won popular enthusiasm more 
than once. When the cholera attacked Eastern 
Spain in 1885, he insisted on visiting the places 
stricken by the disease, to encourage those who were 
contending against it. But his constitution was not 
so strong as his friends tried to believe. He died on 
the 25th of November, 1885. His oldest child. 
Marie de la Mercedes, succeeded him. She was five 
years old when she came to the throne. Her mother 
is regent. 

But, as these sheets pass the press, the telegraph 
announces the birth of a boy, brother to Marie de la 
Mercedes, — who inherits, as the son of the late king, 
the throne which for five months has been filled by 
his sister. 

THE DIRGE OF LARRA. 

(Imitated from the Spanish of Zorilla.} 



On the breeze I hear the knell 
Of the solemn, funeral bell, 
Marshalling another guest 
To the grave's unbroken rest. 

He has done his earthly toil, 
And cast off his mortal coil, 
As a maid, in beauty's bloom, 
Seeks the cloister's living tomb. 

When he saw the future rise 
To his disenchanted eyes, 
Void of love's celestial light, 
It was worthless in his sight ; 
And he hurried, without warning, 
To the night that knows no morning. 



396 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 

He has perished in his pride, 

Like a fountain, summer-dried ; 

Like a flower of odorous breath, 

Which the tempest scattereth ; 

But the rich aroma left us, 

Shows the sweets that have been reft us, 

And the meadow, fresh and green, 

"What the fountain would have been. 

Ah ! the poet's mystic measure 
Is a rich but fatal treasure : 
Bliss to others, to the master 
Full of bitterest disaster. 

Poet ! sleep within the tomb, 
Where no other voice shall come 
O'er the silence to prevail, 
Save a brother poet's wail ; 
That, if parted spirits know 
Aught that passes here below, — 
Falling on thy pensive ear 
Softly as an infant's tear, 
Shall relate a sweeter story 
Than the pealing trump of glory. 

If, beyond 01ft- mortal sight, 
In some glorious realm of light, 
Poets pass their happy hours, 
Far from this cold world of ours. 
Oh, how sweet to throw away 
This frail tenement of clay, 
And in spirit soar above 
To the home of endless love. 

And if in that world of bliss 
Thou rememberest aught of this, — 
If not Being's higher scene 
Have a glimpse of what has been, — 
Poet ! from the seats divine, 
Let thy spirit answer mine. 



INDEX. 



Abbasides, 157 ; governor of , 158 ; 

in Damascus, 163 
Abdallah ben Yassim, 189 
Abdelmumen, 196 
Abderahman I. at Tours, 156 
Abderahman II., the Omeyyad, 

157-162 
Abderahman III., 65; tribute to, 

240; cures Sancho, 243 
Abencerrages, 203; quarrels of, 

206; at the lists, 208; riches of, 

353 
Abenhamet, prince of the Moors, 

210 
Abjuration of Arianism by Goths, 

123 

Abrantes, Duke of, 362 

Abu Abdalla (Boabdil), 220-227, 

318 
Abu Bekir, Emir, 189-192 
Adrian VI., Pope, 329 
Aduba, birthplace of Lucan, 62 
./Emillius Paulus, 38 
^Etius, 86 

Agmat, Fortress of 193 
Agramonts and Beaumonts, 285 
Aixa, Moorish princess, 206 
Alabez, Moorish tribe, 208 
Alans, 76; disappear from Spain, 84 
Alarab, the African, 201 
Alaric, the Goth, 76; wife of, 77; 

court at Toulouse, 94 
Albrecht, John of, 327 
Alcazar of Seville, 270, 307 
Alcudia, Duke of, 370 
Alexander VI., 338 



Alfaqui of Fez, 188 

Alfonso II., el Casto, 233 

Alfonso V., 283, 286 

Alfonso VI., 187-192, 247 

Alfonso IX., 200 

Alfonso X., el Sabio, 262-266; 

sister of, 276 
Alfonso XL, children of, 271 
Alfonso XII., 393 
Algalif, 182 

Algazali, Abu Hamed, 195 
Alhama, taken by Christians, 223 
Alhambra, The, 203, 214, 221 ; 

keys of, 226 
Almanzor, regent at Cordova, 168, 

246 
Almohades, 187, 199 
Almoravides, 187, 195 
Alorcus, 25 

Alphabet, Phoenician, 17 
Alpujarras, 226, 352 
Alsace, 358 

Amadeo, King, 388, 392 
Amadis of Gaul, 249 
American colonies, Rebellion of, 

384 
Amiens, Treaty of, 374 
Amphitheatre at Nismes, 130 
Andalusia, name, 74; fertile fields 

of, 90; subdued, 193 ; accepts 

Henry of, 
Angodleme, Duke of, 3S4 
Anjou, Philip, Duke of, 356, 362 
Anjou, Margaret of, 296 
Anjou, Rene, King of, 294, 296 
Anne of Austria, 354 
Anne, daughter of Maximilian II., 

352 



397 



398 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



Antaeus, grave of, 46 

Antiquera, Governor of, 217 

Arabs, Spanish, 164, 166 

Aranda, Duke of, 366 

Arianism, gift to Spain, 100; re- 
ligion of Leovigild, 106; faith of 
Goswinda, in; abjured by their 
sons, 112, 121; by Goths, 123 

Arians, 92; simple creed, 95; bat- 
tle with Catholics, 98 

Aries, Goths at, 75 

Arragon, Blanche of, 285; Cathar- 
ine of, 315 

Arragon, kingdom of, under St. 
Ferdinand, 264; in arms against 
Pedro, 276; united to Castile, 
279; story of, 281-297 

Arsilla, 140 

Arthur, King, Myths of, 249 

Ascalis, 46 

Assisi, Don Francisco de, 391 

Astronomical tables of Alfonso, 
266 

Asturias, 8 ; possessed by Goths, 
233 ; at war with Leon, 244 

Asturias, Prince of, 314, 354, 357 

Ataulphus, King of the Goths, 
73-80 

Athens, 282 

Atlas, Mountain chain of, iSS 

Attila, King of the Huns, 85 ; 
death, 86 

Augustus Caesar in Spain, 58 

Aurrich, Don, 252 

Austerlitz, 376 

Austria, Anne of, 354 

Austria, Don John of, 352 

Austria, Grand Duke of, 326 

Azhera, palace of, 165 

B 

Bacon, Roger, time of, 266 

Badajoz, 378 

Baetis, river, 44 

Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany, 

Frederick I., 33 
Barca, Governor of, 158 
Barca, Hamilcar, 28 
Barcelona, 79, 283, 287, 290, 296, 

312 



Barcelona, Louis XIII., Count of, 

355 
Basques, 9 ; language of, 10 ; at 

Roncesvalles, 172 
Bavaria, Elector of, 361 
Bavieca, horse of the Cid, 258 
Bayard, Chevalier, 330 
Baylen, Battle of, 377 
Beaumonts and Agramonts, 285 
Bedouins, wandering tribes, 158 
Belgium, 325 
Bermuez, Peter, 259. 
Bernardo del Carpio, 234 
Bilbilis. birthplace of Martial, 62 
Bivar, Rodrigo del, 249 
Blanche of Arragon, 285 
Blanche, princess of France, 285 
Blanche of Navarre, 284, 291 
Boabdil, 220, 225, 227, 318 
Bonaparte, Joseph, 372 
Bonnivet, General, 330 
Bordeaux, burned by Goths, 79 ; 

birthplace of Black Prince, 276 
Boulogne, French fleet at, 376 
Bourbon, Blanche of, 272 
Bourbon, Constable of, 330 
Bourbon, Isabella of, 354 
Bourbon, Peter of, 272 
Bourbons, 358 

Braga (Bracata-Augusta), 60 
Brazil, Cape of, 338 
Brunhilda, the wicked princess, n I 
Bucar, brother of Yussef, 256 
Buckingham, Duke of, 355 
Buenos Ayres, 337 
Bull-fights, 8 
Burgos, birthplace of Cid, 247 ; 

Cid at, 254 
Burgundy, Mary of, 325 
Burgundians, Vandal tribe, 93 

C 

Cabot, Sebastian, 336 
Cadiz, 15, 37, 374, 384 
Caecias, northerly wind, 50 
Caesar-Augusta (now Saragossa) 

60 
Caesar, Augustus, in Spain, 58-61 
Caesar, Julius, in Spain, 54-58 ; in 

Seville, 262 



INDEX. 



399 



Calabria, John of, 296 

Calais lost to the English, 349 

Calderon, Plays of, 104 

Calder, Sir Robert, Squadron of. 

374 

California, 251, 337 

Caliphate of Cordova, Story of, 

I55-I70 
Callagurris, now Callahorra, 62 
Calomarde, 385 
Campeador, the Cid, 249 
Carlists, 385, 389 
Carlos, Prince of Viana, 2S4, 285, 

290, 299 
Carlos, son of Philip II., 348 
Carlos, Don, head of Carlists, 385, 

338 
Carlotta, wife of Don Francisco, 

3 8 .5 
Carrion, Count of, 251 

Carthagena, New Carthage, 
founded by Hamilcar, 21 ; 
seized by Scipio, 34 

Carthaginians in Spain, 19 ; mer- 
chants, 20 ; under Hannibal, 
22 ; at Saguntum, 24, 26 ; 
possess Southern Spain, 33 ; 
expelled, 37 

Castanos, General, 377 

Castelar, 392 

Castile, Catalonia of, Counts of, 
244; kingdom of, extent, 281 ; 
Ferdinand of, 283 ; Henry of, 
28S, 291 ; Isabella of, 298 ; de- 
frays expenses of Columbus, 311 

Catalans, 282, 289, 301, 355 

Catalaunian plains, 85 

Catalina of Castile, 315 

Catalonia subdued, 38 

Catalonians, 14, 2S1, 294 

Catharine of Arragon, 315 

Catharine, daughter of John of 
Gaunt, 280 

Catholic, faith declared, 123 ; sov- 
ereigns, 319 ; party , 388 

Cato the Elder in Spain, 3S 

Celts in Spain, 5 ; habits of, 6 ; 
religion, 12 

Cerda de la Ferdinand, 26S ; In- 
fantas, 277 



Cervantes, tragedy of Numantia, 

40 ; writings of, 104, 250, 344 
Ceuta, Gothic garrison, 140 ; pillar 

of Hercules, 142 
Chalons, Battle of, 85 
Characitanians, 49 
Charlemagne, at Paderborn, Le- 
gend of, 171 ; at Saragossa, 177; 
invasion of, 235 
Charles, Arch-Duke, 362 
Charles the Bold, 325 
Charles, Prince of Wales, 355 
Charles II. of England, 359 
Charles V. of France, 277 
Charles V., Emperor of Germany, 

315, 321 

Charles I. of Spain, 315, 321 ; 
Charles II., 358 ; Charles III., 
365 ; Charles IV., 370 

Chievres, tutor of Charles V., 320 

Chili, 337 

Chilperic of France, 107 

Choiseul, Duke of, 366 

Christendom, domain of, 308 

Christianity, conversion of Goths 
to, 94 

Christians, captives, 204 ; friendly 
with Moors 215, 217 ; before 
Grenada, 224 ; after defeat of 
Goths, 231 ; at Clavigo, 239 ; 
spreading in Spain, 244 ; take 
Seville, 264 ; formerly Moors, 
350 

Christina, Queen, 385 

Christina of Naples, 389 

Chronicle of the Cid, 250, 261 

Chronicle of Spain, 266 

Cid, the birth-place of, 247 ; story 
of, 248-261 

Cinq Mars, Plot of, 356 

Ciudad Rodrigo, 378 

Clavigo, Battle of, 238 

Code of Alfonso, 266 

Coimbra, 274 

Collingwood, Admiral, 375 

Columbus, at Granada, 310 ; voy- 
age of, 311 ; discovery of Amer- 
ica, 336 

Campostella, St. Jago de, 238 

Constance, daughter of Peter the 



400 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



Cruel, 2S0 ; ancestress of Isa- 
bella, 316 

Constantinople, 282 

Constantius, lover of Placidia, 81 

Cordova, taken by Tarik, 148 ; 
caliphate of, 155 ; academy of, 
164 ; mosque, 165 ; centre of 
Arabic learning, 167 ; palace at, 
243 ; rivalled by Seville, 264 

Cordova, Gonsalvo de, 225, 314 

Corduba (Cordova), 60 

Corneille's Sertorius, 53 

Cortes, Fernando, 251, 322, 326 

Cortes, Spanish, 382 

Cotta, beaten by Sertorius, 47 

Couching eyes of John of Arragon, 
296 

Cross, Empire of, 308 

Crowns, united, of Castile and 
Leon, 264 ; of Castile and Ar- 
ragon, 279, 306 



D 



Damascus, Caliphate of, 157, 163 
Damascus, sovereigns of, 163 ; 

rivalled by Cordova, 170 
Dante, Time of, 266 
Darro, river, 21 1 
Dauphiny, 325 
Davis, Captain John, 360 
Diaz, Sancho, Count of Soldafia, 

234 
Dido, 27 
Dominic, 75 
Doria, Fleet of, 332 
Druids, 11, 12 

Dupont, Carelessness of, 377 
Durindana, sword of Roland, 178 
Dwarf assassinates Ataulphus, 80 



E 



Early tribes, I ; coast trade of, 6 ; 
different names of, 8 

Edward III. of England, 276 

Egypt, Sultan of, 265 

Eleanor of Arragon, 285 ; Coun- 
tess of Foix, 292 ; daughter of 
Henry II., 265 



Elections of Visigoth chiefs, 90 

Elizabeth of France, 349 

Emerita-Augusta, 60 

England, William the Conqueror 
of, 250; Henry II. of, 265 ; Henry 
III. of, 268 ; Henry VIII. of, 
330 ; William III. of, 362, 365 ; 
Victoria of, 386 

Enrique, Prince, 271, 277 

Ervigius, successor of Wamba, 135 

Espartero, 389, 390 

Esplandian, 251 

Esquera, or Basque language, 10 

Erminigild, Story of, 106— 119 

Evaric, founder of the Gothic king- 
dom in Spain, 87 ; death of, 89 



Fadrique, Prince, 271, 274 
Ferdinand of Arragon, Story of, 

298-320 
Ferdinand of Castile, 283 
Ferdinand de la Cerda, 268 
Ferdinand of Naples, 286 
Ferdinand III. (Saint) of Spain, 

264 ; tomb, 265 ; VI., 265 ; VII., 

382 
Ferdinand and Isabella, marriage 

of, 298 ; invest Grenada, 225, 

307; receive Columbus, 310; 

grandeur of, 315 ; tombs, 318 
Fernando, King of Castile, 251, 

252 
Ferrol, port of Spain, 374 
Fez, Kings of, 204 
Flanders, Government of, 326 
Flor, Roger de, 282 
Florez, Francisco, 320 
Florida, Bianca, 366 
Florida, Spanish population of, 360 
Foix, Count and Countess of, 292 
France, losses of England in, 349 ; 

marriage of Isabella of, 354 ; 

conspiracy of Cinq Mars, 356 ; 

assistance to United States, 
Francis I., 330, 332 
Francisco, Don, 385 
Frega, Insurrection at, 289 

368 



INDEX. 



40I 



Frere, Hookham, translation of 

the Cid, 261 
Froissart, 292 
Fuero Juzgo, Foundation of, 87 



G 



Galiana, Palaces of, 252 

Galicians, 1 1 

Gallio, 62 

Ganelon, 175 

Garibaldi, 392 

Geber, Arabic architect, 264 

Geierstein, Anne of, 294 

Georgia, 360 

German empire, 358 

Germany, Emperor of, 268, 314, 

331, 352, 361 
Ghent, 326, 358 
Gibraltar, Straits of, I, 4, 142, 

.374 

Giralda of Seville, 264 

Godoy, Manuel, 370, 372 

Gold and silver mines of Spain, 
16 

Gomelez, Moorish tribe, 208 

Gonsalvo de Cordova, 225, 314 

Gonzalez, Fernan, 244 

Goswinda, queen of Leovigild, 
in 

Gothic architecture, 137 

Goths, at Narbonne, 75; burn 
Bordeaux, 79; elect Wallia, 81; 
resist Attila, 85; civilized, 87; 
triumphant, S9; origin, 92; chris- 
tianized, 95; Arians, 97; Catho- 
lics, 123; in Toledo, 126; be- 
trayed, 141; conquered, 147; af- 
ter Guadalete, 231 ; in Seville, 
262 

Grandee of Spain, 389 

Greek, explorers 16; emperor, 282 

Granada, Moorish kingdom, 203; 
divided, 220; fall of, 307; Isa- 
bella's tomb at, 318; wealth of 
Moors of, 353 

Granada, city of, 213; invested, 
225; surrender, 226 

Guadalete, Battle of the, 146 

Guadalquivir, 264 



Guatemala, possessed by Spain, 

337 
Guesclin, Bertrand du, 277 
Guienne, War-cry of, 278 
Gutierrez de Cardenas, 302 



H 



Hamilcar in Spain, 21 ; builds new 

Carthage, 21 
Hannibal, a boy in Spain, 21; at 

Saguntum, m, 24; terror of 

Rome, 27 
Hapsburg, House of, 38 
Hardy, Captain, 375 
Hauteclerc, sword of Olivier, 182 
Henriquez, Joan, 284 
Henry of England, II., 265; VIII., 

330 
Henry of France, II. 349; IV.; 

354 
Hercules, Cave of, 142 
Heruli, Vandal tribe, 93 
Hieronymo, 257, 260 
Hilderic, Count of Nismes, 128 
Hispalis (Seville), 262 
Hixem, III., 169, 170 
Holland, States of, 362 
Honorius, Roman emperor, 77 
Horn of Roland, 181 
Hostages in ancient warfare, 35 
Huesca, University of, 47 
Huns, invasion of, 84; resisted at 

Chalons, 85; vanquished, 86 



Iberians, I, 4 
Ibn-el-Arabi, 171 
Ildefonso, Legend of 126 
Ingunda, French princess, 107 
Isabella, queen of Spain, marriage 
of, 220; suitors, 299; at Val- 
ladolid, 301; good sense of, 306; 
in camp, 308; confidence in 
Columbus, 311, children of, 314; 
death, 317; tomb at Granada, 

318 

Islands of the Blest, 34 
Ismail of Granada, 216 



4-02 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



Jaca, walls built by Cato, 38 

James, Saint, 126 

Janus, Gates of, 58 

Jay, John, 368 

Jerusalem, in possession of the 

Mohammedans, 156; visited by 

Charles V., 334 
Jervis, Admiral, 372 
Jesuits, Expulsion of, 366 
Jesus, Society of, 334 
Jewish physician restores the sight 

of John of Arragon, 295 
Jews in Toledo, 126 ; bargain with 

Cid, 254 
Jezebel, 27 

Joanna, Queen of Naples, 283 
Joanna, Princess, 315, 324 
John of Arragon, 283-297 
John of Castile, 283 
John, Prince, son of Isabella, 

314 
Joseph, King, 378 
Julian, Count, 140—147 
Julius Csesar, 54-58, 262 

K 

Kartah-tuba (Cordova), 28 
Koran, 196 
Kossuth, 392 

L 

Lamp-lighter, Son of the, 195 
Lancaster, Duke of, 280 
Lancaster, Red-rose of, 296 
Lancelot, 249 
Language, Gothic, 93 
Language, Spanish, 30, 38, 68, 88, 

100, 302 
Languedoc, 325 
Larra, Dirge of, 395 
Las Casas, 340 
Latin customs and language in 

Spain, 38 
Laynez, Diego, 260 
Leander, Saint, 113, 124 
Leo, Pope, 127 



Leon, captured by Christians, 233; 
at war with Asturias, 244 ; Fer- 
dinand at, 302 

Leopold, Emperor of Germany, 
361 

Leovigild, 106, 120 

Lexington, Battle of, 368 

Library of Cordova, 167 

Licianus, 62 

Lions, Court of, 211 

Lisbon, 377 

Literature of Spain, 28, iot, 104 

Lorraine, Duke of, 296, 358 

Louis IX., of France, 265 

Louis XL, 294 

Louis XIII. , 354 

Louis XIV., 356 

Louis Philippe, 388 

Louisiana, 368 

Low Countries, Crown of, 326 

Loyola, Inigo Lopez de, 333 ; 
canonized, 334 

Lucan, 62 

Lusitanians, 1 1 ; capital of, 60 ; 
summon Sertorius, 46 ; banner 
of, 346 



M 



Madrid, 362 ; insurrection in, 377 ; 

galleries of, 378 
Magellan, 338 

Mago, Carthaginian general, 34 
Mahdi, Title of, 197 
Mahomet, see Mohammed 
Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, 281 
Malaga, 224 

Marcella, wife of Martial, 62 
Margaret, Princess of Germany, 

3H 
Margaret, Queen of Hungary, 357 
Marguerite of France, 349 
Maria de las Mercedes, 395 
Maria, daughter of Charles Em- 
manuel, 392 
Maria, Princess of Portugal, 386 
Maria de Medicis, 354 
Maria de Padilla, 272, 328 
Maria Anna, daughter of Em- 
peror Ferdinand III., 357 



INDEX. 



403 



Maria Christina, 386 

Maria, Infanta, 355 

Maria Louisa of Savoy, 364 

Maria Louisa, Duchess of Mont- 

pensier, 389 
Maria Louisa of Parma, 370 
Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip 

IV., 356 

Marius against Sylla, 44 

Marsillius, King of Saragossa, 173 

Martial, born at Bilbilis, 62 

Martel, Charles, 156 

Martin, King of Arragon, 283 

Martyr, Peter, 327 

Mary, " Bloody," of England, 348 

Massena, Marshal, 377 

Mauritania, Sertorius in, 46 ; Mo- 
rocco, part of, 140; town in, 160 

Maximilian, Emperor of Ger- 
many, 314 

Mazzini, 292 

Medicis, Maria of, 354 

Mendoza, Cardinal, 318 

Merida, capital of Lusitania, 60 

Metellus, 47 

Mexico, 337 ; Gulf of, 360 

Miguel, Dom, 386 

Miguel, Prince, 315 

Mina, General, 384 

Mir, King of Sueves, 115 

Miramolin Almancor, 141 

Mithridates, treaty with Sertorius, 
52 

Missal-book of Charles V. , 321 

Mississippi, 360 ; river, 370 

Mistletoe, 12 

Mohammed, the prophet, 140, 155 

Mohammed V. of Granada, 216 

Mohammed ben Abdallah, 195 

Mohammed ben Alhamar, 213 

Mohammed, ruler of Almohades, 
201 

Mohammedans in Spain, 157 ; Al- 
mohades sovereigns of, 200 ; 
driven from Andalusia, 201 ; 
finally expelled, 352 

Monkeys at Gibraltar, 4 

Montemolin, Count of, 388 

Montgomery, Count of, 350 

Montpensier, Duke of, 391 



Montserrat, 334 

Moorish, court, 204 ; maidens, 
207 ; king, retreat of, 226 

Moors, in Spain, 206 ; baths of, 
214 ; friendly with Christians, 
215, 217 ; take Zahara, 223 ; 
against Cid, 258 ; win Seville, 
264 ; arabesques of, 271 ; prowess 
of, 307 ; piracy of, 331 ; Chris- 
tianized, 350 ; in Africa, 351 

Morocco, capital of Yussef, 193 ; 
besieged, 188 ; king of, 269 

Moriscos, 350 

Moslem, belief, 215 ; quarrels, 
216 ; power dwindling, 244 

Munda, Battle of, 54 

Munificence of Omeyyades, 165 

Muley Ali Abul Hassan, 220 

Munoz, Hernando, 389 

Murabitins, or Almoravides, 189 

Murcia, 38 

Murillo, 126 

Mur-viedro, 22 ; siege of, 24 ; 
surrender of, 26 

Muse, Saracen leader, 141 

Mustapha, general of Almanzor, 
168 

N 

Naples, Kingdom of, 283, 314 

Napoleon, 372 

Narbonne, Goths at, 75 

Narvaez, governor of Antiquera, 
217 

Navarre, 291 ; kingdom of, 243 ; 
aggressive, 281 ; bone of conten- 
tion, 284 ; renounced by Blanche, 
291 ; taken by Ferdinand, 292 ; 
attacked by Charles V., 200. 

Navarrete, Battle of, 277 

Navas de Tolosa, Battle of, 200 

Nelson, Admiral, 374 

New Testament in Gothic, 94 

Netherlands, 335 

New Carthage, 21 ; blockaded, 34 

New Mexico, possessed by Spain, 

337 
Nismes, Rebellion of, 128 
Northern invaders, 73 
Numantia, Siege of. 40, 344 



404 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



O 



Ode, Shelley's, to Spaniards, 381 
Omeyyades, House of, 157, 163, 

284 
Oppas, bishop of Toledo, 140 
Olivares, Count of, 355 
Orleans, resists Huns, 85 
Ormond, Duke of, 365 
Orosius, Spanish historian, 88 
Orthes, Chateau of, 292 
Orthodoxy of Recared, 121 
Orsini, Princess, 364 
Osca (Huesca), 47 
Ostro-Goths, 92 
Oviedo, capital of Goths, 233 



Pacific Ocean discovered, 337 
Padilla, Maria de, 272, 328 
Palm, transplanted to Spain, 163 ; 

sign of palma, 340 
Pampeluna, 243, 327, 332 
Panama, Isthmus of, 337 
Paraguay, 327 

Parma, Maria Louisa of, 370 
Paul, Duke, letter of, 128 ; at 

Nismes, 129 ; seized, 131 ; life 

spared, 132 
Pax Augusta (Badajos), 60 
Peace, Prince of, 370 
Pedro the Cruel, 270 ; rightful 

heir, 271 ; marriage, 273 ; crimes 

of, 276 ; daring, 278 ; slain, 279 
Pedro, Dom, regent of Portugal, 

388 
Pelayo, 1 50 ; leader of the Goths, 

231 
Pensacola, 360 
Perez Hernan, 320 
Peru, 337 
Peter, Saint, 246 
Peterborough, Lord, 365 
Philadelphia, Siege of, 283 
Philibert Emmanuel, 349 
Philip the L, of Spain, 315, 319, 

325 ; II., 247, 321, 343 ; III., 

346, 352, 355 I IV., 355 ; v., 

356 



Phoenicians, I, 14, 262 
Piracy, Moorish, 331 
Pittsburg, 370 

Placidia, sister of Honorius, 77 
Plutarch, story of Sertorius, 44-48 
Pollock, Oliver, 368 
Pompey, 47-57 

Pope, Adrian VI., 329 ; Alexander 
VI., 338 ; Leo, 127 ; Sixtus IV., 

304 

Portugal, 11 ; ruler of, 51 ; borders 
of, 264 ; story separate from that 
of Spain, 279 ; king of, 310 ; 
princess of, 314 ; crown pos- 
sessed by Philip II., 343 ; Mary 
of, 347 ; ally of England, 377 ; 
regent of, 388 

Portuguese, Losses of, 378 

Pragmatic Sanction, 385 

Prince, Black, 276 

Provence, 74, 75, 325 

Prudentius, Poem of, 62 

Ptolemy, System of, 270 

Publius Scipio, 37 

Punic war, 20 

Pyrenees, 1 ; spurs of, 5 ; Jaca in, 
38 ; northern site of, 75 ; crossed 
by Gothic princess, no; by 
Charlemagne, 171 ; by Black 
Prince, 277 ; " ceased to exist," 
364 

Q 

Quintilian, 63 
Quixote, Don, 104, 346 

R 

Ramiro, 238 ; II., 244 
Rebellion of Nismes, 129 
Recared, 106 ; died, 124 
Redoubtable, 275 
Regeb (October), 192 
Remond, 252 
Rene, king of Anjou, 294 
Republic, French, 370 
Republic in Spain, 292 
Rhodes, 329 
Rhodians, 16 

Richard, Cceur de Lion, 250 ; 
brother of Henry III.,. 268 



INDEX. 



405 



Richelieu, Cardinal, 356 
Roderick, last of the Goths, 139 ; 

legend of, 142 ; courage, 146 ; 

drowned, 147 
Rodriguez Diego, 260 
Roland, Song of, 171 
Romans, in Spain, 30 ; customs, 

32 ; routed by Sertorius, 47 ; 

language of, 88 ; monuments of, 

in Seville, 262 
Rome, opposed by Hannibal, 22, 

2 7> 3° ! Sylla master of, 44 ; 

dark period of, 51 ; subjugates 

Spain, 61 ; domination of, 67 ; 

end of power in Spain, 87 
Roncesvalles, 171, 277 
Ronda, Alcalde of, 218 
Roumania, Admiral of, 282 
Ruy Diaz, the Cid Campeador, 

256 



Sabio el, Alfonso, 266 

Saguntum, 22, 24 

Saint Aignan, 85 

Saint Augustine, 359 

Saint Ferdinand, 264 

Saint Jago de Campostella, 238 

Saint Lazarus, 260 

Saint Louis of France, 265 

Saint Mary's river, 360 

Saint Peter, 246, 260 

Saint Vincent, Cape, Battle of, 372 

Salamanca, 347 

Saldafia, Count of, 234 

Sancha of Navarre, 244 

Sancho, 26S ; the Fat, 243 ; Don, 

249, 252 
San Martin, Bridge of, 125 
San Milan, vida de, 241 
Santa Maria, Church of, 125 
Santiago, 238, 247, 280 
Saracens, 140, 155, 180, 238 
Saragossa (Caesar Augusta), 60, 

177 . 
Sardinia, 281 
Savoy, 326 

Scallop, mark of pilgrim, 240 
Scandinavia, 92 



Scipio Africanus, 32 ; Publius, 32 

Scipios, The, 30 ; in Seville, 262 

Scourge of God, Attila, 85 

Segovia, 304 

Seneca, Lucius, 62 

Senecas, The two, 62 

Sermon on the mount, in four 
languages, 10 1 

Sertorius, Quintus, 44 ; civilizer of 
Spain, 48 ; resources of, 49 ; in 
Portugal, 51 ; assassinated, 52 

Seville, 149, 262, 307 ; surrenders 
to Musa, 149 ; prosperity of, 
262 

Shelley, ode to the Spaniards, 381 

Sicily, 281, 287 ; Isabella at, 307 

Sigeric, 80 

Sixtus IV., Pope, 304 

Soleyman the Magnificent, 329 

Sos, birthplace of Ferdinand, 284 

Southey's Roderick, 150, 250 

Spain, subjugated by Rome, 61 ; 
Roman domination of, 67 ; re- 
duced to province, 149 ; Arabs 
in, 164; invaded by Almoravides, 
192 ; under Almohades, 200 ; 
importance of, 265 ; cardinal of, 
305 ; prosperity of, 312 ; domin- 
ions in America, 337 ; occupied 
by French, 385 ; civil war, 389 

Spaniard, The true, 265 

Spanish language, 30, 38, 68, 88, 
100, 302 

Spanish war of succession, 361, 

304 
Stilicho, 75 
Sueves in Galicia, 76 
Sully, 355 

Sylla against Marius, 44 
Sword, of Olivier, 1S2 ; of Roland, 

178 ; of Yussef, 257 



Tagus, river, 49, 125 

Tangier, Gothic garrison of, 140 

Tarifa, 1, 4 

Tarik, 142 ; attack of, 146 ; at 

Toledo, 148 ; reviled by Musa, 

149 



4o6 



THE STORY OF SPAIN. 



Tarraco (Tarragona), 58, 61, 117 
Tarshish, Ships of, 19 
Tartessus, 19 
Taxfin ben Ali, 198 
Theodemir, Bishop, 238 
Theodofred, father of Roderick, 

139 
Theodoric the Visigoth, 84 
Theodosia, first wife of Leovigild, 

113 

Ticinus, Battle of, 32 

Tingis, City of, 46 

Titian, Portraits by, 348 

Tizona, sword of Yussef, 257 

Toledo, schools of, 100 ; Goths at, 
107-137 ; taken by Tarik, 148 ; 
fast at, 200 ; regained by Chris- 
tians, 247 

Toledo, Archbishop of, 302 

Torres Bamejas, 222 

Toulon, Blocade of, 374 

Toulouse, 75, 77 

Tours, Battle of, 156 

Trance of King Wamba, 134 

Trastamara, Henry of, 277, 279, 
283 

Trastamara, House of, 283, 305 

Treachery of Ganelon, 176 

Treasures of Moors, 354 

Triumvirate, Civil wars Sf, 58 

Tubal, in Spain, 10 

Tunis Capture of, 331 

Turpin, Archbishop, 179 



U 



Ulfilas, 93-95 

Unitarians, the Almohades, 198 
United States, 338, 359, 370 
Utrecht, Treaty of, 365 



V 



Valdabrun the Saracen, 180 

Valencia, 38 ; attacked by Cid, 
251 ; governed by Cid, 256; 
possessed by Ferdinand III., 
264 ; Moors expelled from, 352 

Valentinian, son of Placidia, 81 

Valladolid, 301, 347 



Vandals, in Boetica, 76 ; at war 
with Goths, 78-84 ; court at Se- 
ville, 262 ; Heruli, tribe of, 93 

Vascones (Basques), 9 

Veillantif, the horse of Roland, 183 

Velasquez, 356 

Vendome, Duke of, 365 

Venice, joined to Charles V., 330 

Vergennes, 366 

Versailles, 359 

Vespucius, 336 

Viana, Carlos, Prince of, 285 

Viceroys in Castile, 328 

Victoria, Battle of, 378 

Victoria, Princess, of England, 386 

Victory, Nelson's flag-ship, 375 

Vigo, 365 

Villeneuve, Admiral, 374 

Visigoths, king of, 77 ; princes, 
84 ; monarchs, 89 ; government, 
90 ; name, 92 ; deteriorated, 232 

Vincae, 24 

Vivarambla, 207 

W 

Wahit, sheik of the Arabs, 160 
Wallia, King of the Goths, 80 
Wamba, -Story of, 125-135 
Wellington, Lord, 378 
West Indies, 337 
Wellesley, Sir Arthur, 377 
White hind of Sertorius, 46, 53 
William the Conqtferor, 250 
William III. of England, 362 
Witiza, 139, 146 
World, History of, by Orosius, 8S 

X 

Xanas, 9 

Xeres, Battle of, 146 

Ximena, sister of Alfonso el Casfo, 

234 
Ximenes, Cardinal, 326 
Xucat, river, 256 



Y 



Yahia ben Ibrahim, 188 
Yussef, Emir of Abbasides, 161 



INDEX. 



40; 



Yussef ben Taxfin, 188 190, 257 
Yuste, Monastery of, 335 



Zagat, governor of Malaga, 18S 

Zahani, El, 141 

Zahara, taken by 'Moors, 223 



Zaineb, sister of Abu Bekir, 190 
Zama, Battle of, 32 
Zamora, Lorenzo de, 28 
Zante currants, 24 
Zegris, Moorish tribe, 204 ; quar- 
rels of, 207 ; at the lists, 208 
Zorai'de, Moorish princess, 210 
Zoraya, 222, 223 




The Story of the Nations. 



MESSRS. G. F. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
announcing that they have in course of publication a 
series of historical studies, intended to present in a 
graphic manner the stories of the different nations that 
have attained prominence in history. 

In the story form the current of each national life will 
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The subjects of the different volumes will be planned 
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present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in 
the great STORY OF THE NATIONS ; but it will, of course, 
not always prove practicable to issue the several volumes 
in their chronological order. 

The " Stories " are printed in good readable type, and 
in handsome 121110 form. They are adequately illustrated 
and furnished with maps and indexes. They are sold 
separately at a price of $1.50 each. 



The following is a partial list of the subjects thus far 
determined upon : 

THE STORY OF EARLY EGYPT. Prof. Gkorgk Rawlinsox. 

" *CHALDEA. Z. Ragozin. 
<■' " -GREECE. Prof. James A. Harrison, 

Washington and Lee University. 
" " *ROME. Arthur Oilman. 

" --"THE JEWS. Prof. James K. PIosmer, 

Washington University of St. Louis. 

"-CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church, 

University College, London. 

" BYZANTIUM. 

" THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 

" *THE NORMANS. Sarah O. Jewett. 

" *PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 

" '-SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 

" -GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 

" THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 

" HOLLAND. Prof. C. E. Thorold Rogers. 

" ^NORWAY. Hjalmar PL Boyesen. 

" *THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

" *HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. 

" THE ITALIAN KINGDOM. W. L. Alden. 

" EARLY FRANCE. Prof. Gu stave Masson. 
' " ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahaffv. 

" THE HANSE TOWNS. Helen Zimmern. 

" ASSYRIA. Z. Ragozin. 

" - ;f THE SARACENS. Arthur Oilman. 

" TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

" PORTUGAL. II. Morse Stephens. 

" MEXICO. Susan Hale. 

" IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 

" PHOENICIA. 

" SWITZERLAND. 

" RUSSIA. 

" WALES. 

" SCOTLAND. 

* (The volumes starred are now ready, January, 1887.) 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
New York London 

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